Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!rochester!ur-tut!msir_ltd
From: msir_ltd@ur-tut (Mark Sirota)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: American Programmer
Message-ID: <1664@ur-tut.UUCP>
Date: 6 Apr 88 07:03:39 GMT
References: <87@studsys.mu.edu> <3850007@wdl1.UUCP>
Reply-To: msir_ltd@tut.cc.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota)
Organization: Univ. of Rochester, Computing Center
Lines: 27

In article <3850007@wdl1.UUCP> rhj@wdl1.UUCP (Bob Jones) writes:
> The premise that one will put comments in later is in a class with
> comments like "the check is in the mail".  Believers in this premise most
> likely still believe in the tooth fairy. 
>
> Adding comments as you go is the only way to fly. It may require a small
> amount of additional time up front, but the payoff is huge down the road.
> Poorly commented code is, in my personal opinion, one of the key
> indicators of an immature and impatient programmer.

Agreed, but allow me to break this up a little further.

I *never* add in-line comments until I'm done writing and testing the
algorithm or procedure in question.  There is such a thing as
over-commenting, and the threshold is much lower when the code is
incomplete.  Sometimes comments just get in the way and make the code
harder to read, so I generally prefer a "how" and "why" (as opposed to
"what") comment at the top of a section of code, with nothing inside.
"what" comments can be added later, as appropriate, to clarify complicated
code for the future.

So I think it's a mistake to make a blanket claim that adding comments
later reflects an immature programmer; sometimes it simply makes more
sense to do it that way.
-- 

Mark Sirota
 msir_ltd%tut.cc.rochester.edu@cs.rochester.edu (rochester!ur-tut!msir_ltd)