21 Nov
2011
21 Nov
'11
10:27 a.m.
On 21 Nov 2011 at 11:06, Brian Wheeler wrote:
No arguments there. I used to manage some programmers
and I'd find
lots of lines like:
a++; // add one to a
Totally pointless.
Heh. I vividly recall a fellow who proudly pointed out to me that
every line of his code had a comment. Unfortunately, most were like:
BX5 X1*X3 LOGICAL AND X1, X3 TO X5
Reading thousands of lines of drivel like this is insulting and
indicates a lack of appropriate focus.
On the other hand, a tight loop, with instruction timings written out
as comments is quite informative.
One more observation. I've read a lot of other people's code in my
lifetime and one thing that stands out in sharp contrast from the run-
of-the-mill awuful stuff is that the narrative commentary to good,
inspired code is always well-formed, grammatically correct and often
witty.
Consider the fellow who's devised his own allocation algorithms using
a Fibonacci series introducing his narrative with "Lieber Leser".
Or the fellow who, in his buffer-management scheme makes reference to
"guru beads". Or the database author who talks about quipus. When
the same fellow was writing proposal text, he was equally engaging.
And it's something that causes me a bit of despair when reading the
'Net-engendered 133T-text of young programmers.
Now, get off my lawn...
--Chuck