From: "W. Kent Starr" <elderburn@...>
Date: 2001-07-05T14:06:49+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:17274] Re: /* */ comments

On Wednesday 04 July 2001 09:12, Stephen White wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Jul 2001, James (ruby-talk) wrote:
> > Err, well, aethetics aside, having a simple way to block-comment
> > code is very handy.  Trying to comment out large sections by
> > prepending '#' to every line is tedious.
>
> You pretty much have to go through every line anyway to make sure there's
> no other comments in the middle of the code:
>
> Eg:
>
>   code
>   code
>   code
>   code /* comment */
>   code
>   code
>   code
>
> If you were to comment block this out, you'd end up with
>
>   /*
>   code
>   code
>   code
>   code /* comment */
>   code
>   code
>   code
>   */
>
> Which would be an error. For this reason, I prefer "#" since it always
> works and can handle other "#"s already in the code.

FWIW in c++ I use:

#if 0    // this code sux :-) - wks(20010704)
   code
   code
   code
   code /* comment */
   code
   code
   code
#endif

for avoiding precisely the same "gotcha" Stephen brings up.

In addition, it's a nice to quickly distinguish blocked out code from 
true comments blocks, also a handy "feature." 
 
>
> Anyway, I don't have any real concerns either way... I was just responding
> to Dave's request for opinions. :)

Ditto. In Ruby I just use begin=, end= to block out (at the time) 
questionable code. Downside is with rd2 that stuff shows up. Of course, that 
may be an upside too, depending :-)

Regards,

Kent Starr
elderburn@mindspring.com