3 ms·

Just glancing through the qmail GitHub repository gave me a headache. Plenty of files have 0 comments (not really sure where you see the clearly stated assumpti

• simtel20 12y ago
  Here's something I did for myself a long time ago: take some of the fundamental code like alloc.c, alloc_re.c, fmt_str.c and str_*.c, and start commenting it yourself. I found that it was so expressive and concise that after a short time the code is very clear and the comments get in the way. The only real noise is that no-one uses SunOS cc anymore and compilers will optimize loops (expanding in place, or doing other magic optimizations when appropriate) so loop-unrolling doesn't apparently buy an increase in performance anymore.
• taeric 12y ago
  And yet he probably wrote code that would be considered objectively better than anything I have ever seen from my large variable name and lots of comments colleagues. Perhaps there is more to it than surface level concerns?
  • aros 12y ago
    You've presented a false dichotomy. You've also not defined what constitutes as "objectively better" when judging code. My original comment was based entirely on readability and maintainability as a third party. I'm sure the author of the code has no issue knowing exactly what is happening and how to fix issues. Imagine someone trying to audit the code. It would take a ton of wasted time just to get up to speed which could be alleviated by, you know, documenting.