this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2024
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[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Good code is self-explanatory. You should only comment your code if it does something unexpectedly complicated.

The code shows what is being done. The comments should explain the why.

[–] independantiste 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Yes. This 1000x. I hate it at work when I come across code that was written 3 years ago that has literally no traces of why it's there and a quick summary of what it does. Especially because that code is always the most abbreviated spaghetti you've ever seen. People should stop thinking (their) code documents itself because 99.999% of programmers cannot do it right.

I really like the Google way of coding: assume the person reading the code is the most 1337 programmer ever, BUT that this person knows absolutely nothing about the project

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago

This is something a lot of people don't seem to understand. Even if code is self-explanatory, I want to know why it was designed that way.

I've fixed bugs where the fix was only a one line change, but it was extremely difficult to figure out, so I left a 10ish line comment above it explaining why it has to be done that way.