On Wed, Mar 4, 2026 at 2:11 PM Ted Nolan <tednolan> <[email protected]>
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...
> --
Which is why a really smart person sets things to the 'offical clock' or has
THREE of them (and logs their errors).
--
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