2021-08-30 - on code comments

recently, while listening to a podcast interview with Brian Kernighan i came across of a great quote from him:

Don't comment bad code – rewrite it.

while i did mumble about code comments in the past, this quote is so good and adequate, yet so condensed, it's worth exploring it a bit:

• bad code shall not be commented, but rewritten.
• existing comment may hint you that it might be a bad code.
• comment does not necessary mean that the code is bad.
• there are places where comments are needed, as it's hard/impossible to explain it enough in code.

another quite from Brian K. that i love is:

Do what you think is interesting, do something that you think is fun and worthwhile, because otherwise you won't do it well anyway.

here are some more. :)

and remember – by the end of the day, there are only 2, truly difficult issues in IT:

1. cache invalidation
2. naming things
3. off-by-one errors