Slashdot Mirror
Auto Code Commenting Software, Free Chairs
sien writes "When you think about it, code is usually fairly mundane and simple. Finally someone has come up with a parser and lexer that actually auto-comments code, allowing for vastly more rapid coding. This amazing new tool is called The Commentator and claims to analyse source code as it's being written and insert the necessary code comments. It's absolutely amazing. Also the problem of seating for eXtreme Programming has finally been solved."
That is just so cool, asnd funny....
Individually, these stories might be amusing but when they're covering the entire front page it becomes rather wearing.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Won't someone please think of the children!
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
That chair is not big enough for some men's asses.
I sure hope this 2-person seat can handle a 500-pound couch potato, otherwise my partner will by flying.
That chair -- the "PairOn" -- is it for intimate co-workers, siamese twins or for people with big, fat asses?
Beauty, this will replace the legions of QA people that used to do my code commenting
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
But I can't help but think how this could ruin some programmers. There are some programmers who live by documenting their work before they actually write it, as a guide to what they do. In fact, in my assembly language class, they say this is the best way to do it (not true IMHO, but oh well). besides, don't you just get a thrill out of documenting a finished routine, going to compile it, and realize you copy/pasted over a large chunk of code? or, more likely, forgetting an end tag and commenting out half of your storage?
Good code doesn't require comments - the variable names should tell you everything you need to know about the program.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
This is the first funny article of the day. I like the self-importance option. In truth, a tool like this is impossible to actually write, but it would be cool since I never comment my code. But I don't comment for job security and I hate my coworkers. Just kiddin'
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
I wonder if it will read the code commentary aloud in John Madden's voice for extra money?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Beating a dead horse doesn't even come close to these stories now.... please stop. Please.
Funnier than Google Gulp, but not as funny as that Parrot gag from O'Leary a few years ago.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, simulate.
This is probably a joke, but comments are the most useful part of any code. I used to hate them finding it boring and useless. After a I wrote a few large projects I couldn't comment enough. Auto comments might not be as usefull rather then if you did them yourself
Along with the new auto-debug option.
Ok, obviously /. has implemented an Auto April Fools Submittal mechanism.
/. staff are actually at work today, the AAFS is handling all of these submissions automagically.
None of the
Come on 12am...
Goofy, Geeky Gifts and More!
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Looking at it, it almost looked like it developed from that point alone ;)
It was hard to write, it should be hard to read.
Very good humor! But on a more serious note, this is actually part of the problem with some comments. They duplicate the code. Comments like
// increment i by one
i++;
really slow down the comprehesion level of most competent programers, because they have to filter out a lot of redundacy. Comment on purpose, on the more general function of things, etc. An automated program, could only really comment on the code that was there, and likely in an obvious way.
Not to detract from the marvelous humor of the 'article' but it was a good demonstration of the problem.
It's 12:20 on the west coast. Only another 3 1/2 hours left.
(( On the bright side, though, I did convince a friend that I'd taken a job in Redmond as a shill for (OK: 'Spokesperson') for Microsoft. ))
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Good programmers never comment their code; it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
I've never understood why people do things like this. Why not do something useful: specify what's a valid or invalid value of newHome, say when it should or should not be called. Or just leave it blank if you can't find something useful to say.
if you have any more doubts - look at the configuration screen. Also peek at the commented code - looks familiar ?. (linux, etc..)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Amen brother. It's just fucking annoying.
This is truly a revolutionary technology. There is even a mode whereby it will be nice and friendly and propagate itself through "Microsoft Internet Explorer" without you even asking: inserting comments into all the code on your computer for you! They can't do it all for free, so don't you worry at all about the ''' home loan and ''''viagra comments that appear in all of your code. It it is just part of their business model.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Slashdot has become utterly worthless today. I thirst for legitimate articles!
Man do I wish this was real. Maybe it could just take random quotes from bash.org and insert them as comments in my code.
Oooh! Brb... spending time at work writing code to insert random bash.org comments in commercial applications.
I can look at any piece of code in any project I've worked on and see what the code technically does. What I can't do is look at something and say "Ah, this criteria exists in the code because of business rule #275 for customer X." Almost all my comments are related to business rules and what I'm trying to accomplish. There is no way an autocomment tool could analyze the code for the business rules I use.
I will run mine with verbosity turned way down and bitterness turned way up...Just like the real me!
The PHB wants to order these so he has a place to sit while micromanaging.
Best regards.
Damn, still nothing for XSLT.
I can already taste the Karma.
... so it must be time to head over to ./ and BITCH about the lame April Fool's jokes!
./ for a full day. Or at least a few more hours than usual...
Me, I love April 1 because I can ignore
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
It says "this guy shouldn't be allowed to touch himself, much less a computer".
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
PairOn... Pron... PairOn... Pron...
I don't know, but that chair seems designed exclusively for eXtreme Pr0n-watching with the SO.
Oh, wait; I'm on Slashdot... nevermind.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
//TODO: remove this comment
word.
I want that chair! Finally a Herman Miller that will fit my fat ass.
Damn you April Fool's Day! ;)
I guess we'd better cancel Sense of Humor Day too, then.
This gets my vote as best one of the day.
Real programmers don't comment. If you did that someone might actually be able to figure out what you are doing. You need a code obfuscate function that takes simple functions and makes them complex and adds nonsensical comments, such as:
... A[i] ...;
//Super Froopy node generator //Charge the Interociter ... A[(i-3)/8] ...; //null node generator
Before:
int i = 1;
while (i 1000) {
i ++;
}
After:
int i=11;
while (i 8003) {
i += 8;
}
Now that's a death ray!
If the comments are so simple that a machine parser can write them, how could they possibly be useful?
I thought the point of comments is to write the things that are not obvious. Obvious comments are coding spam where I work.
Raydude
bitterness=9,profanity on
:)
major lol
--
Toby
...and it's just not true.
/* FALLTHROUGH */ can tell sourch code analyzers such as Lint some useful information too. (Not to mention the programmer that looks at your code and has to think for a sec "did he mean to leave out the break there?")
Good variable names (class names, function names, etc.) go a long way: they tell you a lot about WHAT the program is doing. (I would argue that they can't always say everything too, but that's another matter.)
However, they don't tell you WHY you are doing what you are doing.
Also, remember there are other reasons for comments besides people reading your code. JavaDoc/Doxygen comments allow documentation to be produced right from the source. Comments such as
Would you F- off with the April Fool's whining already? We Get It! We've figured it out already: you are superior to the rest of us, who are obviously too easily amused.
To be bored with April Fool's Day is to be bored with life.
Enough! Make it stop! Make it stop!
Technoli
10 PRINT "Hello World" 'what a novice
20 END 'boy I'm glad that's over
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Because some places require you to write comments (even when they are really not necessary) and enforce it with a style checker. :)
One way to shut up the said checker is to generate comments of this sort. Sad, but true
It's got to be more peaceful than this.
Clearly, I need to recalibrate the delicate balance of caffeine and cannabis in my system...
Stop Posting This Shit IN EVERY DAMN ARTICLE!
Thank you.
/* You're not supposed to understand this */
Sheesh....Now the fscking ADS are even April Fools.
Gorkman
If there was a follow-on product that could automatically do group code reviews, complete with inane and gratutious remarks, truisms, and CS type boilerplate comments, I could really use that. Talks about eXtreme Programming!
Best regards.
I suspect that you're trolling, but that is a Javadoc comment. The comment text, "Sets the Home to a new value," will be used as the method's description in the automatically generated HTML documentation.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Relevance=1,Verbosity=6,Religion=On,Profanity=On
Posting Slashdot comments via telegram?
//avoid using the reverse "i >= 0; i--" style loop here
...
bitterness=9:
// only some lame intern would write a counting
// loop as "i >= 0; i--" instead of "i-->0;"
1. puts lots of work into craft
2. become clueful, uber-coder
3. sell clue on ebay for ad-free slashdot pages
4.
5. profit?
Nun #1: "Where's the soap?"
Nun #2: "Yes it does, doesn't it."
*running away*
if the code is so mundane and simple, why does it need to be auto-commented?
The probably meant Dijkstra
but then again, they wrote the C0|\/||\/|3|\|7470r, who am I to question?
You can't handle the truth.
I agree. This happens all too often-- it's what you get when you mandate code comments but don't add time for it to your project schedule. Doing it right can frequently take longer than writing the code, and sadly, nobody will pay for the time it takes. So the programmers tag every "i=1;" with a "//set i equal to 1" and leave out anything even remotely subtle or useful.
PLEASE MOD THIS (and other similar posts) DOWN, this has been in every single article today, and he has got mod points in each one.
See user's other posts at
http://slashdot.org/~Urgo
"One way to shut up the said checker is to generate comments of this sort."
Yeah, as opposed to providing a valid comment, despite it's being "not necessary".
I have never seen good documentation produced with JavaDoc or Doxygen. Usually the documentation consists of a page for each class providing nothing that you could not get from a well formatted header file. People just seem to use these tools to tick the documentation box. Someone show me I am wrong and point me to some good automated documentation.
Where are mod points when I need them?
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
My God, will they ever stop?!?!?!?!? *TIME MACHINE TO 11:59 PM* Windows LongHorn, Re-Named Windows NeverHappeining-Whore
"Love is like a trampoline, first it's like "SWEET!!" then it's like *BLAMM!*"
This could be useful, but I'd probably find myself deleting autocomments more than keeping them. I sparsely comment my code, and only do so when it is necessary. I can't really see this saving me a lot of time.
INACTIVE ACCOUNT
Possibly because companies have "standards" written by people that don't understand technology that dictate that every function must have a comment explaining its purpose. This can get truly atocious with OO languages where you often have trivial accessor functions like the one in this example.
Lemme get this straight. You believe that the process of designing (or choosing) an algorithm doesn't provide you with the information you then simply type up as a comment?
Explain how that is possible, please.
In a working environ, a dipshit who fills their program with "//set i equal to 1" type shit deserves termination. It ain't for their own amusement, and it ain't amusing
Uh, well, here?
The doc generators don't actually remove the need to, well, document things. It's just handy to be able to move around through hyperlinks, to be able to see documentation of all a class' members (without having to go look at its superclasses), and so on.
And it's surely good to keep the comments directly above the relevant code rather than in some separate header file, so they are (marginally) more likely to be up-to-date.
fud, notfud, yes, no, maybe
Don't blame the tool because the people using it are lazy and/or doing it wrong.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I've never even enjoyed this "holiday", and it seems that this year it's just gone overboard. Hell, look at that ThinkGeek ad up there... "iCopulate"?! An iPod dildo? WTF?!
If anyone needs me, I'll be living in reality for the rest of the day.
Ok that is good documentation. I was a bit too emphatic in my claim. But you know what I mean. I don't want to name names but there are a number of projects in which the Doxygen generated documentation is almost entirely pointless. That's not to blame the documentation programs. They clearly can be used well - as you indicated.
I saw the computer virus spread to humans article, I saw the ipodtreo article, but not before I saw a machine-made commentator did I realize that it was april fools.
sLayout->addSpacing(10);
This adds very little clutter to the code, and if anyone wants to know why that line is there, they can head over to the bug database and read all 50 paragraphs of description and debate regarding the problem that this line fixed, when it was added, how it works, etc.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Yeah, I do know what you mean. Sounds like we agree then.
Like anything else. You start out with best of intentions, then... requirements change, deadlines get slipped, and things like writing those doc-generator comments can take a running jump... Heh.
fud, notfud, yes, no, maybe
I've seen plenty of OSS and proprietary software code that had comments that *looked* auto-generated. Stuff like:
public void setHome(String newHome)
{
}
I've never understood why people do things like this. Why not do something useful: specify what's a valid or invalid value of newHome, say when it should or should not be called. Or just leave it blank if you can't find something useful to say.
Have you never used an IDE? They look auto-generated because they were.
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."
The information may be there, but organizing it and putting it down in a useful fashion is not something most developers ever do, let alone do quickly. It's rare that I see good info, particularly on side effects and non-parameter requirements (file formats, db requirements, external system constraints and expectations, etc...)
I agree with you that a good programmer should be able to do this instinctively after design and implementation of the code. Unfortunately, not every (or even most) programmers are good. Real life, however, forces you to deal with and create procedures for the lousy programmers. A manager who doesn't understand the variation among his developers is asking for crap when proper documentation is not checked and enforced-- and when the time it really takes is not factored into the project estimates.
The dipshits do deserve termination. I'd rather have nothing than crap. Sadly, you will almost always have to work with people like this-- and you (and/or the project manager) will *have* to find ways to coax usable output out of them, or you end up doing their jobs for them.
I'm just saying that putting the time squeeze on people who are already just barely getting things done isn't going to result in a font of wisdom in the comments. By not making allowances for differences in skill (and thus development time) you end up making maintenance or expansion drastically more difficult down the road, because documentation is what gets crapified first.
And remember: there is always somebody smarter than you, too. So don't be too smug with the dipshits.