Re: Some exciting new trends in concurrency and software design

[Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>]

anon@att.net writes:

> Taking a weekend break may clear your head that may help solve the 
> problem but it can also cause you to forget how you were solving that 
> problem.
>
> Plus, back in the day, some of the profs would say "It might be the best 
> code in the world, but without comments its a grade of zero." Because 
> even the prof may not remember which problem your working on.

Yes, indeed!  I find it extremely annoying when I have to read an entire
screenful of code in order to puzzle out what this code is trying to
accomplish, when a little comment would explain it.

> And it only take a few comments.

Under-commenting is far worse than over-commenting.  You shouldn't
comment the obvious.  But the person writing the code is necessarily
a poor judge of what's obvious -- that person just got done thinking
carefully about it, so it all seems obvious, but it's mysterious to
somebody else (or to the same person a week later).  So I say: err
on the side of too many comments.

- Bob