From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!npois!houxi!houca!lime!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!philabs!sdcsvax!jimv
Newsgroups: net.misc
Title: Re: Self-documenting code???? Shesh!
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.2093
Posted: Sun Jun 13 13:44:15 1982
Received: Tue Jun 15 00:56:08 1982

First, where are you drawing your line between comments being
necessary and not being necessary?  You seem to think that 3 line
programs do not need comments, but 4 liners do.  Perhaps 10
lines may not need comments?  How about 100?  Clearly lines
of code is a meaningless measurement.

But that is not the real point I want to make.  You are neglecting
the importance of the ABILITY to read code.  I feel that that is
at least as (if not more) important to be capable of reading code
as it is to be able to write code.  From a code maintainer's
standpoint, that is what it must always come down to.  From the
viewpoint of a person writing new code, it is imperative that they
be capable of drawing upon the wealth of information available only
in code.  (For example, imbedded in Knuth's MIX algorithms are
valuable coding hints and content not otherwise apparent.)

Truthfully, I have not seen any indication that programmers
are any better at descriptive prose than they are at coding.
It seems to me that a programmer's task is primarily one of
organization.  If a programmer cannot organize his thoughts
in the framework of a computer language so that all revelant
information is readily available, what makes you think it
will be improved by apologizing for the mistake in English?

Don't misread me.  I am not claiming that comments are
useless, but instead that comments are not "the" solution.

	Jim Valerio  (sdcsvax!jimv)