this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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[–] rimu@piefed.social 17 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Writing really good comments is an under-appreciated skill.

[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 16 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Even though comments are very helpful, often it's even enough to name variables and methods/functions really good. At least do that. You don't want i, j and value. Believe me. You want rowCount, colCount and deliveryOption instead. You just may not know it now, but you will, when it has to be changed in a few months.

[–] loutr@sh.itjust.works 10 points 10 months ago

Comments are good when you're doing something weird to handle an edge case or something. But yeah most of the time clear variable names, and extracting complicated code to a dedicated and clearly named function, are enough.

There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.

Phil Karlton

[–] aksdb@feddit.de 1 points 10 months ago

Where comments are useful most is in explaining why the implementation is as it is. Otherwise smart ass (your future self) will come along, rewrite it just to realize there was indeed a reason for the former implementation.

[–] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

// don't know anymore, just leave this block alone