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From: apwh@cbdkc1.UUCP (Alan P.W. Hewett x2675)
Newsgroups: net.rumor
Subject: Re: Does Bell strip comments?
Message-ID: <517@cbdkc1.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-May-84 06:23:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbdkc1.517
Posted: Fri May 25 06:23:55 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 31-May-84 20:17:22 EDT
References: <2169@brl-vgr.ARPA>, <683@druky.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Columbus
Lines: 14

To answer the original question, sometimes attempts have been made to strip
the comments.  I happen to the the writer of the current getty and init and
I put loads of comments in so that I wouldn't have to maintain the code
forever.  The comments were stripped, reinstated after severe protest, but
reformated from my style to something I found considerly less tidy and nice
to look at.

I happen to think that comments are as important as the code itself.  No one
remembers exactly what they did six months later when it is there own code.
With some one elses it can be hopeless and wastes much time and effort trying
to figure out uncommented code.  If I owned UNIX I'd be commenting it after
the fact.  Every change I've put in it has been commented.  With the OS I'm
writing now, much of which comes from UNIX, comments abound and have been
added to code lifted from other sources, like UNIX.