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comment by b_b
b_b  ·  4282 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Yes, your code does need comments.

Commenting definitely isn't the only thing preventing people from running the code, but it definitely contributes to preventing people from reading it. Say, if some historian wants to learn about what the coders were thinking and why they did what they did, even technical commentary could help quite a bit, I suppose. So remember, comment for posterity!





akkartik  ·  4282 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Personally I find the notion of reading code without first running it to be meaningless[1]. We're unable to make sense of that program not because somebody didn't put some squiggles at the ends of lines prefixed by the right header, but because no muchine can run them, so we can't play with making changes and seeing what happens.

[1] Cue Dijkstra rolling over in his grave.