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Well, native language and programming languages aren't the same thing and you express yourself differently in them. That's basically a given. But comments are

Well, native language and programming languages aren't the same thing and you express yourself differently in them. That's basically a given. But comments are most useful when they explain why something is being done, not what's being done. The latter is usually simple to work out with even the most hideous code. But if I don't know what you were trying to do or why you did something in a particular way, seeing what you did alone may not be all that helpful, especially when maintaining code.

brazzy 12y ago
But all too often, people who write hideous code sprinkle it with comments that merely explain what is done, at the lowest level.
- nirvdrum 12y ago
  Yes. The industry is full of hacks. I don't see how that's a problem with comments though. They're going to write hideous code with or without comments.
  - brazzy 12y ago
    The problem is that comments visually bloat the code and make it harder to understand. Bad code with useless comments is worse than bad code with no comments. And that's not even counting comments that are out of date and misleading...
    - nirvdrum 12y ago
      And bad code with good comments is more useful than bad code with no comments. It strikes me that replacing "comments" with "tests" in much of our thread would lead to the same outcome. I guess we're just going in circles on this one.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > The problem is that comments visually bloat the code and make it harder to understand. That's a good reason to avoid breaking up logical blocks of code with comments. Its not a good reason not to comment. > Bad code with useless comments is worse than bad code with no comments. That's a good reason to have code review (which includes review of comments) to ensure that there is neither bad code nor useless (including out of date or misleading) comments.
couchand 12y ago
native language and programming languages aren't the same thing and you express yourself differently in them Indeed. However, when developing software I'd expect that the responsibility is first to express yourself clearly in code and only second to express yourself in prose, which means if you're taking very much time to do the latter it's time that could be spent doing the former.
- gms7777 12y ago
  The idea is that if you do a little bit of the latter now, you will save yourself or someone else a lot of time doing the former later.

brazzy 12y ago

But all too often, people who write hideous code sprinkle it with comments that merely explain what is done, at the lowest level.

nirvdrum 12y ago
Yes. The industry is full of hacks. I don't see how that's a problem with comments though. They're going to write hideous code with or without comments.
- brazzy 12y ago
  The problem is that comments visually bloat the code and make it harder to understand. Bad code with useless comments is worse than bad code with no comments. And that's not even counting comments that are out of date and misleading...
  - nirvdrum 12y ago
    And bad code with good comments is more useful than bad code with no comments. It strikes me that replacing "comments" with "tests" in much of our thread would lead to the same outcome. I guess we're just going in circles on this one.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > The problem is that comments visually bloat the code and make it harder to understand. That's a good reason to avoid breaking up logical blocks of code with comments. Its not a good reason not to comment. > Bad code with useless comments is worse than bad code with no comments. That's a good reason to have code review (which includes review of comments) to ensure that there is neither bad code nor useless (including out of date or misleading) comments.

couchand 12y ago

native language and programming languages aren't the same thing and you express yourself differently in them Indeed. However, when developing software I'd expect that the responsibility is first to express yourself clearly in code and only second to express yourself in prose, which means if you're taking very much time to do the latter it's time that could be spent doing the former.

gms7777 12y ago
The idea is that if you do a little bit of the latter now, you will save yourself or someone else a lot of time doing the former later.