[TUHS] daemons are not to be exorcised/Comments in code

David david at kdbarto.org
Fri Mar 23 05:01:40 AEST 2018


> From: Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org>
> Yep, and I'm glad that I had bosses to whom I didn't have to explain why 
> my comments were so voluminous.
> 
> And who first said "Write your code as though the next person to maintain 
> it is a psychotic axe-wielding murderer who knows where you live"?  I've 
> often thought that way (as the murderer I mean, not the murderee).
> 
> I'd name names, but he might be on this list...
> 
I’ve always said that the person was a ‘reformed’ axe-wielding murderer
who knows where you live.

Please, a little decorum.

W.R.T. comments in code, and a bit of Unix, when I taught Unix Systems
programming at UCSD one of my students wanted to use his personal
computer for the programming. I didn’t care as long as it would pass the
tests I ran after the fact.

After his second homework was turned in, I stopped looking at his code
or even running it, as the comment blocks were just so well done. Nary
a comment in the function itself, just a block before each one very clearly
explaining what was happening.

	David




More information about the TUHS mailing list