Re: Python

Peter Flass <[email protected]> Thu, 18 Dec 2025 12:52:33 -0700
Newsgroups comp.os.linux.misc,alt.folklore.computers,comp.lang.python
Organization A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On 12/18/25 11:00, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
> Peter Flass <[email protected]> writes:
>> I comment *A LOT*. When I had to go back and revisit some very old
>> code, I wished I had commented more. I've almost never looked at a
>> program and said "I wish it had fewer comments."
> 
> Regrettably, I’ve encountered plenty of comments that don’t actually
> reflect the code (for a variety of reasons).
> 
> If the code is wrong and the comment is right then that’s great, you
> have a nice hint about how to fix the code, assuming you realize there’s
> a problem at all.
> 
> However if the code is right but the comment is wrong then the comment
> is worse than nothing. The code would be improved by removing it
> (although almost certainly improved even more by correcting it).
> 
> I’ve also encountered quite a few comments written by people who had
> been instructed to add comments to under-commented code, but didn’t
> really understand what they were looking at. The result generally
> obscures more than it illuminates.
> 

Since documentation never gets updated, if it's even created at all, 
comments are the best you can get most of the time.