Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!haven!adm!cmcl2!lanl!jlg
From: jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: language commenting constructs
Message-ID: <10460@lanl.gov>
Date: 14 Mar 89 23:30:08 GMT
References: <1543@zen.UUCP>
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 26

From article <1543@zen.UUCP>, by vic@zen.UUCP (Victor Gavin):
> People have problems in any language that they do not understand/comprehend,
> that's why there a lot of people who are able to make money teaching others
> how to program.

People also have problems in languages that they DO understand/comprehend!
The issue here is how to minimize the occurance/severity of such problems
for BOTH classes of programmers.  There is a related issue: how hard is it
for a new user to learn the language - particularly its pitfalls/limitations.

/* I also don't have much problem with the C type   */
/* of comments.  This is because I always terminate */
/* comments before the end of a line (like now).    */
// Or better yet, I use a language like C++ which
// always terminates comments beginning with '//'
// at the end of a line - automatically.

In addition, I always use ifdef-type macro sequences
to eliminate code rather than commenting it out.

I do these things because I have learned that it is not safe to 
do otherwise.  The comment syntax which requires explicit termination
of comments _IS_ more difficult to learn to use safely.  The safe
use of the construct is also (marginally) more difficult in actual
use.  It is doubtful that anyone designing a new language would
consider the old-fashioned C-like syntax to be desireable.