this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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Yeah, but unironic...
If your code needs comments, it's either because it's unnecessarily complex/convoluted, or because there's more thought in it (e.g. complex mathematic operations, or edge-cases etc.). Comments just often don't age well IME, and when people are "forced" to read the (hopefully readable) code, they will more likely understand what is really happening, and the relevant design decisions.
Good video I really recommend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf7vDBBOBUA
I’ve seen code that look like this:
int delay = 15 * 60; // 10 minutesEven if the comment was on the same line someone forgot to update it. People just ignore comments.
Better solution is to write (in C#):
TimeSpan delay = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(15)Much more obvious what the code actually means.
A better comment would be
delay in secondsas that is the one thing not obvious from glancing at the code.Or just name the variable
delaySecondsif you really want to store it as an int. Bonus is that every use of the variable perfectly communicates what it is.