Linus Torvalds In Sweary Rant About Punctuation In Kernel Comments (theregister.co.uk)

An anonymous reader shares a report on The Register: Linus Torvalds has unleashed a sweary rant on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, labelling some members "brain-damaged" for their preferred method of punctuating comments. "Can we please get rid of the brain-damaged stupid networking comment syntax style, PLEASE?" the Linux Lord asked last Friday. "If the networking people cannot handle the pure awesomeness that is a balanced and symmetric traditional multi-line C style comments, then instead of the disgusting unbalanced crap that you guys use now, please just go all the way to the C++ mode."Torvalds despises the following two comment-punctuation styles (with his comments):/* This is disgusting drug-induced
* crap, and should die
*/ and:/* This is also very nasty
* and visually unbalanced */Torvalds prefers the following two styles:/* This is a comment */ and:/*
* This is also a comment, but it can now be cleanly
* split over multiple lines
*/

Comments

Re:Arguing over the subjective

[sunderland56]

I both heartily agree with him, and think he's a crackpot. If you're trying to attract unpaid people to work on a project, this isn't the way to do it.

// and, for the record, who uses c-style comments any more?
// haven't written one in years
// double-slash comments are the one and only improvement that c++ gave us

Many things are worse than bad comment punctuation

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Worst comments are obsolete comments. The comment described what that function was designed to do, some 8 years ago. It has morphed since, default arguments added, the list has been replaced by multimap which was replaced by hashmap completely changing the behavior, and still the comments have not been updated.

Next worst are ego comments. Every inline function preceded by three line comment naming the author as though he is Leo Tolstoy or she is Jane Austen.

Next worst are trivial comments. Next worst are no comments.

Then comes badly formatted comments.

Re:Linus the man-child

[Archangel Michael]

“Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity" - Seneca

If you're not prepared for opportunity, and someone else is, you call them "lucky". Probably because you were too busy with Pokemon Go!