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From: Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com>
Subject: Re: Self-referential types
Date: 1999/10/21
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In article <7un1me$6jm$1@wanadoo.fr>,
  "Jean-Pierre Rosen" <rosen.adalog@wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> LL : Natural ; -- this is the line length
>
> in favour of the (comment-less):
> Line_Length : Natural;


Yes, but I am guessing that in context I would not like EITHER
of these alternatives, instead probably what is needed is
something like:

Line_Length : Natural;
--  This is the length of the current line, not including the
--  terminating control characters. It is set each time a new
--  command is processed, and reflects the length of the command
--  after stripping trailing spaces.


Well the details will vary, but you get the idea, comments very
often need to express far more detail than can be contained in
a reasonable length name. If anything, the name Line_Length is
more dangerous than LL in this regard, since it can seduce the
programmer into thinking that documentation is not required.

I actually prefer a rule that says that comments should be
independent of names. Yes, that might lead to overcommenting
in some rare instances, but that's a disease that I can put
up with much better than the serious epidemic of under
commenting :-)


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