From: chad fowler <chadfowler@...>
Date: 2001-04-22T22:42:14+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:14020] Re: From Guido, with love...


--- Mitch Vincent <mitch@venux.net> wrote:
> > >  You don't need comment when  the code is very
> well written.
> 
>     I don't think that could be further from the
> truth... Code that is well
> written can still be extremely complex and hard for
> anyone to understand..
> Besides, I define "well written code" as code that
> makes smart use of
> whitespace, comments and hungarian notation.

So, by this definitions, one could write a totally
obfuscated, unoptimized mess that doesn't meet the
requirements of the project, and it would still be
good?

> If you got rid of the
> comments in any of my code
> (for some of the larger projects), you'd run into
> trouble quick when you
> made changes.. I always try to include "If you
> change this, you have to
> change X,Y,Z over in the XYZ function etc etc" type
> comments...

Code that is properly factored shouldn't have these
kinds of hidden dependencies.  If you need a comment
like the one mentioned above, you've most likely
violated the law of Demeter and should start
refactoring soon.  See
http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?LawOfDemeter.


>     *Good* comments are priceless, IMHO. *Good*
> comments can shave hours and
> hours off code comprehension -- learned this from
> experience, though our
> experiences are clearly different..

*Good* comments can shave hours off of *bad* code
comprehension.  Whatever the case, if you can let the
code speak for itself, you don't run the risk of sync
issues between your code and its documentation.

Chad

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