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)