Maybe Comments _Should_ Explain ‘What’
People say “Comments should explain why, not what.” I feel like starting a flame war today so I’m going to argue that comments should explain ‘what’ too. Please don’t use this as justification to write bad code, okay? Okay. First of all, why shouldn’t comments explain ‘what’? If you need comments to explain what’s going on, it suggests your code is unclear. If I write //weight, radius, price w = 10, r = 9, p = 1 That’s not as clear as saying weight = 10, radius = 9, price = 3 “But it’s obvious that w is weight!” Sure, if you’re seeing those lines back-to-back. But presumably you’re initializing the variable to use it, which means that it’s going to appear later. When you see w later in the body, you need to go back and check what it is. That’s a…
