this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
896 points (96.3% liked)
Programmer Humor
19149 readers
921 users here now
Welcome to Programmer Humor!
This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!
For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.
Rules
- Keep content in english
- No advertisements
- Posts must be related to programming or programmer topics
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
About comments:
Please please please, do not always write comments. Try to write code that does not need comments whenever possible. Proper variable, class and method names go a long way. If you think a block of code needs a comment, turn it into a method and give it a proper name instead.
Comments should be a last resort for cases where making the code self explanatory is not possible, and those should be rare.
About optimization:
Optimal code is code that fulfills it's purpose without observable issues.
If you try to make something faster without any prior complaints or measurements indicating that it being slow is an actual issue, you are not optimizing, you are just engaging in mental masturbation.
This is the way. In 'some' cases comments are perfectly fine. Like when you need to document 'why' something was done the way it was our to link to a specific piece of documentation.
When you start commenting 'what' the code does, you code is not self explanatory enough. And those comments will get outdated and need refactoring too. Just more unnecessary work.