Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!megatest!djones
From: djones@megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: comments on comments
Message-ID: <2319@goofy.megatest.UUCP>
Date: 23 Feb 89 02:24:22 GMT
References: <2989@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU>
Organization: Megatest Corporation, San Jose, Ca
Lines: 32

From article <2989@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU>, by hsd@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU (Harry S. Delugach):

 [ On how to convince programmers to comment their code... ]

> Sometimes it means having a programmer go back to a year-old program and
>
> try to make efficient changes to it. Sometimes it means getting livid with
>                                                         ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^
> anger at the long-gone programmer when you have to maintain his/her 
> ^^^^^
> uncommented code (Do unto others...).

I almost never get mad any more. I've decided anger is out of place
except, perhaps,  when one is fighting other scavengers out on the savanna,
something I seldom do, now that the Safeway has opened up down the street.

But when I did get angry at programmers, it was never because they
did not comment their algorithms.  

Sometimes I got angry at them for writing convoluted code.  But when
I was deciphering that stuff, it seemed easier to read the tangled code than
to read the tangled comments. ( Somebody who has just written a mess of a
program probably will write a real big mess of a comment. )

And I *did* get angry when the comments did not match the code.  And I 
got *livid* when they did not comment the data-structures and variables.



                              Grrrrr,

                              Dave J.