As the resident advocate of the position that commenting is not an unabashed good, I feel obliged to respond. The issue of what does and does not need comments is one that I have put a little thought into.

My all-time favorite insight comments remains Re: The Purpose of Commenting. My personal understanding of what I0 said is the style I described in some detail at Re (tilly) 4 (disagree): Another commenting question,. (That is a semi-unfortunate thread. While I like it for the comment, The public posts were paralleled by a series of private /msgs that were more friendly than the public record. I refer back to it because among other things it captured detailed thoughts about why I coded as I did right after I wrote it. But I regret the one-sidedness of the exchange.) I have been happy with that compromise between comments and code for a while now. Comments serve a purpose that code never can. But what you can communicate by coding well, you definitely should.

(In fact when I next experiment with my coding style I am likely to try commenting less than I do now.)

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