That’s why reviewers should also watch out for comments to ensure their quality. Hence why I said it’s part of a programmer’s job, not some afterthought.

http://antirez.com/news/124

Comments get stale and over time transition from: accurate to outdated, to eventually flat-out lies.

Sounds like some people aren’t doing their work enough then. Code comments are part of the work that a programmer should do, not an afterthought. Who else is gonna update that code if not the programmer? And if a programmer isn’t supposed to update their code and we can just all write clean code that would somehow make us all be better engineers (yeah, I use this title differently from programmers), then why are code comments even a thing?

Self-documenting code is good and all, but so should there be good comments.

I’ve been referencing that Divio doc since 2021, possibly earlier in 2020. I even linked to the document in early 2022. It’s quite likely that it simply wasn’t crawled by the Web Archive before May this year.

Sort of interesting that this documentation system appeared in two different places that don’t seem to reference each other.

https://docs.divio.com/documentation-system/

Hard disagree that documentation is a waste of time. I think you’re just failing to see and use documentation correctly.

Tech documentation should never:

• record implementation details; that’s what commits and PRs are for
• be about the code, but about the solution, information, or provide guidance; use code comments when talking about code
• be taken as 100% accurate or infallible, but the general direction or essence should still remain true (related to the 2nd point)
• be expected to be up-to-date; readers should always look at the created / completed / last edited date and make a judgement how much salt to actually take from it

Documentation can

• be some kind of paper trail that shows how we got to where we are
• provide guidelines for getting started on a project, or some part of a larger project, with more context with respect to the business, so that readers are equipped with sufficient context when diving into the code (READMEs can then just focus on setup and testing instructions)
• go further into what goes around a solution, eg considered alternatives, what actually requires solving given a functional requirement (it’s not always the case that we can fit a solution within a sufficiently small ticket, so tickets might be too localized to give a bigger picture of how a problem is being solved)
• record system architecture, with actual illustrations, which can be easier to grok than 50 Terraform files

Writing these out is also good for people who don’t read code or don’t have the time to read code, eg your tech lead, your manager, Tech VP, etc, people who should have some idea of your system or solution, but not necessarily the implementation detail, so that they can do their work more effectively.

There’s also a culture where a project, or a sufficiently complex problem, starts with a tech proposal, which would properly capture the problem and do solution planning. It’s easier and faster to change than a PR, and reviewers can read that for context. In any case, this democratizes knowledge, instead of creating more tribal knowledge.

It’s not possible for everyone to just tell if it’s supposed to be sarcasm. ADHD makes it hard. A bad day makes it hard. A tiring day makes it hard.

The downside of the misunderstanding isn’t just downvotes. It’s possibly a proliferation of misinformation and an impression that there are people who DO think that way.

Being not serious while saying something grim is not a globally understood culture either. It’s more common and acceptable in the Western world as a joke.

So… call it accessibility, but it’s just more approachable for everyone to just put an “/s”.

There are passports that has the line “This passport is valid for all countries except Israel”.

Imagine the amount of bandwidth and energy saved, if they didn’t do any of this bullshit.

They are essentially using someone else’s money to get themselves more money. Fuck these people!