Comments On Code Comments?

theodp writes "It seems like comments are on programmers' minds these days. The problem with comments, as Zachary Voase sees it, is that our editors display comments in such a way as to be ignored by the programmer. And over at Scripting News, Dave Winer shares some comments on comments, noting how outlining features allow programmers to see and hide comments as desired. 'The important thing is that with elision (expand/collapse),' explains Winer, 'comments don't take up visual space so there's no penalty for fully explaining the work. Without this ability there's an impossible tradeoff between comments and the clarity of comment-free code.' Winer also makes the case for providing links in his code to external 'worknotes.' So, what are your thoughts on useful commenting practices or features, either implemented or on your wishlist?"

Comments

Doesn't matter in the end

[crazyjj]

Changing the color of the comments, or making them collapsible/non-collapsible isn't going to have any meaningful impact. A rushed or sloppy coder is going to ignore them either way. And a conscientious coder is going to read them regardless.

The real problem with comments isn't their color, it's when they AREN'T THERE AT ALL. You could have the damn things flashing in rainbow colors and it still wouldn't change the fact that the legacy code I'm going over was done by a sloppy piece of shit who never wrote any comments in the first place, or who wrote cryptic/indecipherable comments that would take a linguist 10 years to translate into meaningful English.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go play Sherlock Holmes with some strange method written by an Indian contractor whose only comment on it was "This move thing around."

Re:Doesn't matter in the end

[garcia]

The real problem with comments isn't their color, it's when they AREN'T THERE AT ALL.

THIS. I deal with sloppy coding convention all the time but at least when the code is commented I can get a mile-high view of what each section is doing w/o having to spend time carefully piecing the work apart to figure out what happened.

The lack of comments for others is annoying but I really want to know how people go back into their own code several weeks (or even days) later and know what the hell they did when there are no comments.

Many times I have run across a commented section of code that reads something like:

/* Attention future Bill: this section of code sucks and it looks horrendous and awful but I wrote it under a tight deadline. Just hit F3 and let the bitch run; it works, I promise. */

I can only shake my head at myself ;-)

Don't mind me

[Sez Zero]

I'm just here for the Comments on Comments on Code Comments.