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From: Niklas Holsti <niklas.holsti@tidorum.invalid>
Subject: Re: Is there a way to do large block of source code comments
Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 22:02:42 +0300
Date: 2014-09-02T22:02:42+03:00	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <c6mii7Fso2rU1@mid.individual.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <7376f57a-aa89-4ca4-8b44-568dee994707@googlegroups.com>

On 14-09-02 18:01 , Adam Beneschan wrote:
> On Monday, September 1, 2014 12:08:21 PM UTC-7, Niklas Holsti wrote:
> 
>> One of the worst mistakes in the programming field is the choice of
>> the name "comments" for the in-source documentation and
>> description. "Comments" suggests something secondary, incidental,
>> unstructured, incomplete.
> 
> Which is probably an accurate description of how programmers used
> them when the term "comment" was first used.

True for some programmers, but not all of them.

There was also the problem with the interpreted languages like BASIC,
some of which stored the comments in RAM along with the executable
program -- if you wrote to many comments, your program no longer fit in
memory :-(

I actually had that problem once, with TRS-80 BASIC... so I wrote a
BASIC program to remove all comments from another BASIC source text.

> I wouldn't call this a mistake, any more than I'd call it a mistake
> to refer to a memory dump as a "core dump" or to the program that
> translates from a high-level language as a "compiler". 

Ok, you have a good point. I will in the future call it "one of the most
unfortunate choices of a word".

-- 
Niklas Holsti
Tidorum Ltd
niklas holsti tidorum fi
      .      @       .


  parent reply	other threads:[~2014-09-02 19:02 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 48+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2014-09-01 17:24 Is there a way to do large block of source code comments gdotone
2014-09-01 19:04 ` Jeffrey Carter
2014-09-03  0:07   ` robin.vowels
2014-09-03  0:44     ` Jeffrey Carter
2014-09-03  1:15       ` gdotone
2014-09-03  4:17         ` J-P. Rosen
2014-09-03  8:04       ` Brian Drummond
2014-09-03  0:50     ` Adam Beneschan
2014-09-04  2:30       ` robin.vowels
2014-09-04 15:12         ` Adam Beneschan
2014-09-03  8:22     ` Georg Bauhaus
2014-09-03  8:28     ` Stefan.Lucks
2014-09-03  8:23       ` gdotone
2014-09-03  8:57         ` Pascal Obry
2014-09-03 15:12           ` Stefan.Lucks
2014-09-03 15:52             ` Pascal Obry
2014-09-03 17:48               ` Georg Bauhaus
2014-09-03 18:28                 ` Peter Chapin
2014-09-03 18:52               ` Adam Beneschan
2014-09-03 21:47                 ` gautier_niouzes
     [not found]                   ` <91e173a8-7451-4609-b141-ce3c6b19455f@googlegroups.com>
2014-09-04  5:56                     ` Pascal Obry
2014-09-03 22:42                 ` Georg Bauhaus
2014-09-03 21:02               ` Stefan.Lucks
2014-10-01 21:15                 ` Randy Brukardt
2014-09-03 16:58       ` Jeffrey Carter
2014-09-04 18:19       ` Keith Thompson
2014-09-03 15:32     ` Shark8
2014-09-04  2:37       ` robin.vowels
2014-09-04  7:20         ` Georg Bauhaus
2014-09-04 12:46           ` robin.vowels
2014-09-04 15:44             ` G.B.
2014-09-12  2:52         ` Shark8
2014-09-01 19:08 ` Niklas Holsti
2014-09-01 20:34   ` G.B.
2014-09-01 20:53     ` Niklas Holsti
2014-09-02 13:14       ` G.B.
2014-09-02 14:38         ` kalvin.news
2014-09-02 23:33         ` Randy Brukardt
2014-09-03  8:17           ` Georg Bauhaus
2014-09-01 21:15   ` Simon Wright
2014-09-02 15:01   ` Adam Beneschan
2014-09-02 16:35     ` Simon Wright
2014-09-02 17:14     ` Jeffrey Carter
2014-09-02 19:02     ` Niklas Holsti [this message]
2014-09-02 20:10       ` mockturtle
2014-09-02 23:36     ` Randy Brukardt
2014-09-01 19:13 ` Anh Vo
2014-09-01 21:04 ` gdotone
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