Describing the what also helps when you dabble in a new technology or little-used technology. It helps to explain to yourself what you’re doing and it helps in onboarding. “Hey, newbie, there’s a function in XYZ module that’s extensively documented. Look there for guidance.”
I don’t code, at best I script. I’m a sysadmin, not a dev, so I play around in PowerShell mostly.
I just started to naturally do all of this. Not because I was taught to, but because I’ve written too many scripts that I later looked at, and thought, WTF is going on here… Who tf wrote this? (Of course it was me)…
So instead of confusing my future self, I started putting in comments. One at the beginning to describe what the file name can’t, and inline comments to step me through what’s happening, and more importantly why I did what I did.
The sheer number of comments can sometimes double the number of lines in my script, but later when I’m staring into the abyss of what I wrote, I appreciate me.
Comments should explain “why”, the code already explains “what”.
The allowable exception is when the what is a what the fuck, as in you had to use a hack so horrible that it requires an apology comment
Absolutely, although I see that as part of why
Why is there a horrible hack here? Because stupid reason…
Or if the what is so cryptic and esoteric that it would require the reader a couple hours of research to understand it.
Also, I find it useful to summarise the what before code blocks if that can’t be summarised in a function name
Describing the what also helps when you dabble in a new technology or little-used technology. It helps to explain to yourself what you’re doing and it helps in onboarding. “Hey, newbie, there’s a function in XYZ module that’s extensively documented. Look there for guidance.”
Inline comments yes.
Function/Class/Module doc comments should absolutely explain “what”.
You are absolutely right. It was inline comments I had in mind.
I don’t code, at best I script. I’m a sysadmin, not a dev, so I play around in PowerShell mostly.
I just started to naturally do all of this. Not because I was taught to, but because I’ve written too many scripts that I later looked at, and thought, WTF is going on here… Who tf wrote this? (Of course it was me)…
So instead of confusing my future self, I started putting in comments. One at the beginning to describe what the file name can’t, and inline comments to step me through what’s happening, and more importantly why I did what I did.
The sheer number of comments can sometimes double the number of lines in my script, but later when I’m staring into the abyss of what I wrote, I appreciate me.
I agree.
I usually think of that as documentation, not comments.
But even so, the code should say what it does, with a good name. The documentation adds details.
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