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From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: Papers on the Ariane-5 crash and Design by Contract
Date: 1997/03/25
Message-ID: <dewar.859348392@merv>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 228410254
References: <858728022snz@transcontech.co.uk> <VA.0000001b.0057cd80@herold>
Organization: New York University
Newsgroups: 
 comp.lang.eiffel,comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.programming.threads,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.java.tech
Date: 1997-03-25T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


J Durchholz says

<<Comments as source code documentation help, but they don't eliminate the
problem. I have seen code where comments and code were badly out of sync (I
have to woefully admit that I'm the author of some of it). The reason for such
inconsistencies is usually pressure to meet a deadline.>>

Discrepancies between code and comments are bugs, often serious bugs.
Pressure to meet a deadline should never result in the technial folks
involved being willing to cut corners and deliver code with bugs.

Usually the reason that comments get out of synch is programmers who don't
give the correctness of comments sufficiently high priority!

Note incidentally that executable assertions can ALSO get out of date, yes
you may have a chance of testing revealing such a bug, and it is true that
testing will never reveal a bug in a comment. However, relying on testing
alone is always dangerous, so whatever techniques (other than testing)
are used to ensure the correctness of code should also be applied to
ensuring that comments are correct.

It is this attitude that is critical in achieveing the admiteldly
difficult goal of making sure that comments stay in sync (systematic
reading of code is also very helpful :-)