Sorry to revive an old discussion, but I think this is a misinterpretation of PEP8, and that you may want to consider **reverting #1682.** PEP8 refers exclusively to _descriptive_ comments, not commented-out code.
PEP8 makes these statements about comments which shows that they aren't referring to commented-out code (and which cannot possibly be applied to commented-out code): * _"Comments should be complete sentences."_ A commented-out line of code is a Python statement, not an English sentence. * _"The first word should be capitalized, unless it is an identifier that begins with a lower case letter."_ Commented-out code is _always_ going to start with an identifier (or a keyword), so this requirement would never apply. * _"Comments that contradict the code are worse than no comments. Always make a priority of keeping the comments up-to-date when the code changes."_ By its nature, commented-out code _precisely_ contradicts the actual code, as it is a line of code that is _not_ interpreted; it has been removed from the program or replaced by something else; so what that line describes is not part of the program. The main reason I think #1682 should be reverted is also (probably) the reason why PEP8 recommends adding a space after the #: that space _improves_ readability of the comment, but for commented-out code you'd rather want to _"obscure"_ it. I find that removing that space has precisely that "psychological effect". For example, if I see ```python #return length ``` my brain sort of "chokes" on that weird `#return` "word", and my natural reaction is to ignore the rest as gibberish. But if I see something readable, like ```python # Return the length ``` that "passes the filter" and my natural reaction is to read the rest. For this reason, I've somehow gotten used to distinguish comments and commented-out code based on whether there is a space or not. So if I see ```python # return 0 ``` that looks to me as a descriptive comment rather than commented-out code, whereas any of ```python #return 0 #~ return 0 ``` look like commented-out lines of code. And ```python # ~ return 0 ``` looks just weird. This convention seems to be used extensively in Linux config files such as .bashrc and /etc/default/grub, where descriptive comments always start with #-space, and commented-out lines that users may want to uncomment always start with a single # and no space. Personally I think this distinction is good practice, and have set it that way in `filetypes.python` myself, but I think this should be the default behavior. What do you think? (PS: One argument against this is if users use the "Comment Line(s)" feature to quickly create block comments after typing the whole paragraph without #'s, but I don't think people do that often... do they?) -- You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/geany/geany/issues/1681#issuecomment-922802580
