On 2026-03-04 21:01, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
In article <[email protected]>,
Michael F. Stemper <[email protected]> wrote:
On 18/12/2025 12.00, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
Peter Flass <[email protected]> writes:
I comment *A LOT*. When I had to go back and revisit some very old
code, I wished I had commented more. I've almost never looked at a
program and said "I wish it had fewer comments."
Regrettably, I’ve encountered plenty of comments that don’t actually
reflect the code (for a variety of reasons).
If the code is wrong and the comment is right then that’s great, you
have a nice hint about how to fix the code, assuming you realize there’s
a problem at all.
However if the code is right but the comment is wrong then the comment
is worse than nothing. The code would be improved by removing it
(although almost certainly improved even more by correcting it).
I encountered a perverse version of that. My (US) employer was purchased
by a German firm. We began adapting their code base for NAFTA market
requirements. The good news was that every comment was written twice:
once in German and once in English.
The bad news? I knew enough German to be able to tell that the two paired
comments sometimes disagreed on what was being done or how it was done.
A man with one clock knows what time it is. A man with two is never
quite sure...
Experimental science would not agree.
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Cheers, Carlos.
ES🇪🇸, EU🇪🇺;
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