
Can We Code Without Comments? - yotamkadishay
https://medium.com/appsflyer/can-we-code-without-comments-maybe-2075abfc2ace?source=linkShare-29bf9cbbbc63-1523009932
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celticninja
Comments should explain why something was done not what it is doing. The code
should explain what is being done and the comments give it context, so perhaps
a legislation change meant rewriting something to do with tax or a bug caused
by interacting with another piece of software required the change. That's what
you comment not a human version of what the code is doing.

~~~
yotamkadishay
But is it maintained like code? Maybe we can try to improve our code to avoid
having many comments?

~~~
Freak_NL
Good code is legible and may not have a lot of comments at all, but the
comments that are there add value.

And honestly, what codebase doesn't have these:

    
    
        // This looks weird and redundant, but is necessary because of a 
        // sneaky bug in libbar (libbar issue tracker #123) that might be 
        // fixed in their upcoming 2.0 release. Without it a race condition
        // can occur at seemingly random intervals. See our issue tracker
        // #456 for the whole nasty story.
        barProvider.fertilizeFoos(null);
    

No amount of code is going to convey the same crucial information.

And yes, a professional programmer will maintain that piece of documentation.

