Re: Python

On 18/12/2025 12.00, 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 encountered a perverse version of that. My (US) employer was purchased
by a German firm. We began adapting their code base for NAFTA market
requirements. The good news was that every comment was written twice:
once in German and once in English.

The bad news? I knew enough German to be able to tell that the two paired
comments sometimes disagreed on what was being done or how it was done.

-- 
Michael F. Stemper
Galatians 3:28
-- 
https://mail.python.org/mailman3//lists/python-list.python.org