Two Squeak-related bugs and three questions

tim Rowledge tim at rowledge.org
Thu Jun 15 16:28:04 UTC 2006


On 15-Jun-06, at 8:51 AM, Wolfgang Helbig wrote:

>
> It sure is! But most of it simply rephrases the code. And that is what
> I consider useless.
I completely disagree. It *explains* what the code is intended to do  
and the way that it does it. Simply sticking the code in there would  
be completely unreasonable since it is non-obvious how it provides  
the correct result.

Comments that explain the intent, the purpose, the reason, for the  
code are crucial to maintaining a system. The old joke "comments? why  
do think it's called code?" sums up the antithesis of responsible  
programming that seems to be the normal approach. Yes, reading the  
code tells you what it *does* do (until you find a compiler bug for  
example) but it tells you nothing about what it was intended to do,  
what spec it was putatively meeting or what limits on its  
functionality were known about.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Strange OpCodes: SD: Self Destruct





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