/********** Setting up the fkuArray **********/
fkuArray = array(…
The code is self explanatory
/s needed apparently
How bad programmers comment their code. Good programmers don’t comment at all and let the code speak for itself, leaving commenting to some obscure and arcane implementation the coder left in after a week long binge on caffeine and gummy bears.
This is the truth. In my experience, the people who often writes comments are also writing the most incomprehensible code.
Comments are frequently getting outdated as well, so they’re not in great help understanding the code either.
I was rewriting some old code of mine and ended up stripping out the comments. I kept reading them instead of the code, which I had been changing, and they were irrelevant. (I added new comments back in, though a big reason to rewrite was to make the code more self-explanatory.)
Nah. It should be obvious by just looking at it in code. If it isn’t, you haven’t extracted single purpose methods out of it yet.
Code should absolutely speak for itself. But the occasional comment is still good to explain the ‘why’ of the code when the why isn’t very obvious, often due to a niche requirement. Also any time you have to break out a hack, that needs comments up the ass, what was the bug, what URL did you find the fix at, why does this hack work, etc etc. It’s very satisfying to go back and remove those hacks after they are no longer needed, often because the underlying technology fixed the bug that had to be hacked around.
Best comment ever was “It used to work like this but person at client demanded it work like that on this date” when the client complained it shouldn’t work like that.
That’s basically what comments are most useful for. When you’re doing something that’s not obvious, and want to make sure the “why” doesn’t get lost to time.
// I told them I'd do this but only if they gave me time next sprint to fix it - 12-03-1997
I spent a year making my company’s iOS apps accessible (meaning usable for the blind and people with vision disabilities). I had to do a lot of weird shit either because of bugs in Apple’s VoiceOver technology or because of the strange way in which our code base was broken up into modules (some of which I did not have access to) and I would always put in comments explaining why I was doing what I was doing. The guy doing code review and merges would always just remove my comments (without any other changes) because he felt that not only were comments unnecessary but also they were a “code smell” indicating professional incompetence. I feel sorry for whoever had to deal with that stuff at a later point.
Well, this is shitty
I hope the reviewer did not also squash commits, and the next programmer would be able to at least dig what was there.
Doing changes after some rockstar dev implemented some really complex service, but left no clues as to what does what is so frustrating, and I can never be sure that I don’t break anything in a different place completely
That’s actually the perfect comment, because if anyone ever comes back to fuck with you about it, it’s explained right there. Then you turn it right back around on management and watch them run around like chickens with their heads cut off.
Out management used to tell us, that even if head of department had committed to doing something some way, there’s no way or need to hold them accountable. It’s just that situation has changed, and nobody should bat an eye.
To be fair, they also did not pressure us much for the missed deadlines or missing features, because it was indeed the result of the situation described in the first paragraph
Comments should explain “why”, the code already explains “what”.
The allowable exception is when the what is a what the fuck, as in you had to use a hack so horrible that it requires an apology comment
Describing the what also helps when you dabble in a new technology or little-used technology. It helps to explain to yourself what you’re doing and it helps in onboarding. “Hey, newbie, there’s a function in XYZ module that’s extensively documented. Look there for guidance.”
Unless you’re working with people who are too smart, then sometimes the code only explains the how. Why did the log processor have thousands of lines about Hilbert Curves? I never could figure it out even after talking with the person that wrote it.
Inline comments yes.
Function/Class/Module doc comments should absolutely explain “what”.
I don’t code, at best I script. I’m a sysadmin, not a dev, so I play around in PowerShell mostly.
I just started to naturally do all of this. Not because I was taught to, but because I’ve written too many scripts that I later looked at, and thought, WTF is going on here… Who tf wrote this? (Of course it was me)…
So instead of confusing my future self, I started putting in comments. One at the beginning to describe what the file name can’t, and inline comments to step me through what’s happening, and more importantly why I did what I did.
The sheer number of comments can sometimes double the number of lines in my script, but later when I’m staring into the abyss of what I wrote, I appreciate me.
