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Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Use of declare blocks
From: Georg Bauhaus <bauhaus@futureapps.de>
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Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 11:20:59 +0100
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Date: 2007-03-23T11:19:49+01:00
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On Fri, 2007-03-23 at 00:15 -0500, Randy Brukardt wrote:
> <adaworks@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message

> > In your case, you and the small number of programmers who work
> > with you are intimately familiar with the code.
>=20
> That's no excuse for using a bad organization. I know how hard it is to g=
o
> back to code you haven't touched in a couple of years. It doesn't matter =
if
> you wrote it originally: you won't remember much about it.

In this situation I have started pushing and forcing myself to write
one line of comment above each meaningful group of statements,
even when their meaning seemed obvious to me. In particular, when their
meaning seemed obvious. As you say, it won't stay obvious, and
the programmer's knowledge at the time of writing is lost with
the missing comment and has to be regained.
"What's next" style comments provide the problem and solution
context necessary for better understanding the LOC made for
solving the problem. This context information is much harder
to extract from the context that the program text might provide
by following formal implication chains.

I wish we could again have a language (not tool) whose definition
honestly adds the requirement that there be an utterance of
the programmer about the intent of his lines.
It might be a cultural change well worth it, in any sense
of the word. Algol 60 impressed me with its =C2=ABcomment=C2=BB symbol,
and a rule where to place it: after a =C2=ABbegin=C2=BB symbol.