This is so far the best and the most concise comment in favor of code comments I've read so far.
Thanks man. teisipäev, 30. aprill 2013 21:16.39 UTC+3 kirjutas Vince O'Sullivan: > > On Monday, 15 April 2013 07:38:03 UTC+1, brucechapman wrote: > >> If what we write first is "the simplist thing that might work", then >> I'd suggest comments should explain code that is not apparently the "the >> simplist thing that might work". or "comments should explain why the >> simplistic thing that might have worked, didn't" >> > > Unfortunately, code that the developer has stripped bare, in order to make > it more "simple", is rarely code in a form that is most useful to someone > who has to maintain it in the future (including when that someone is the > same person and "the future" might only be days later). > > Comments are (or, at least, ought to be) good precisely because they are > redundant. Error checking is only possible when redundancy is present. If > the comments and the code match, our confidence in it increases; if not, it > decreases. Unit tests work in the same way. They are redundant code - > often bigger and more complex than the code under test - in that they are > written but not shipped (just as comments are written but not executed). > Nevertheless, no one would suggest that removing tests would be a good > thing because it would make the overall code base simpler. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Java Posse" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
