Comments on: Commented Code == Technical Debt

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 17:29:12 +0000

“For those of you that are code comment haters, this post is not for you. ”

Why would a “comment hater” object to your deleting comments? I think you would instead make friends over a post like this!

By: Knut

Knut — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 17:16:54 +0000

@tudor: why is it impractical to document code changes in check-in comments? perhaps you check in to seldom? And if in your real world, people don’t document code changes, why treat the symptom (using commented code blocks with explanations in the source files) instead of curing the disease causing the symptom? (smaller check-ins and proper commens on all checkins).

There’s no must here, only bad practices.

By: Tudor

Tudor — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 11:15:19 +0000

To me such attitude just seem arrogant – indeed in many cases commented code can be just deleted and TFS/SVN use instead for looking into history – but in real and not-so-ideal world, in many cases, somebody has to modify (or comment out) several pieces of code and he has to make sure he write down _why_ he did this, so anybody working later on that piece of code knows _why_ that change was done – in real world, very few people document all code changes in the check-in comments (and it would be impractical to do so for hundred of changes).

So in a less-than ideal world, where not all code is self-describing and crystal clear, commented code with clear comments explaining _why_ the change is necessary, are a must, unfortunately.

By: Claudio Lassala

Claudio Lassala — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 07:43:14 +0000

Amen, bro. I’ve blogged about that a little while ago, too: http://claudiolassala.wordpress.com/2010/10/29/claudio-those-comments-are-ugly/

By: technicaldebt

technicaldebt — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 01:24:23 +0000

Boohoo cry me a river. You must be a real snob if you feel smug about deleting commented out code that some one else probably needed but just didn’t know how to put code based context switching (IE debug mode vs production mode) in their code.

How much technical debt is it to simply ignore the comments like the compiler has.

By: Technikhil

Technikhil — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 15:47:03 +0000

You are not alone Rod. I have seen this in lots of Legacy Code I maintain – so much so that I consider it code smell and a sign of trouble!!
http://technikhil.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/commented-code-is-a-bad-code-smell/

By: G. Andrew Duthie

G. Andrew Duthie — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 15:42:07 +0000

Couldn’t agree more. I’m definitely guilty of commenting out code and not getting around to actually removing it. Gotta work on that.

By: Dan Atkinson

Dan Atkinson — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 15:22:18 +0000

Returns true. You probably meant it to be a single equals, otherwise, this post is a question.

Well written code shouldn’t need comments.

If you use comments to explain the flow, you obviously need to look at refactoring.

By: Chris Pietschmann

Chris Pietschmann — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 15:20:43 +0000

“I see dead code.” Man that sounds scary!

By: Sergio Pereira

Sergio Pereira — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 14:53:44 +0000

I agree but, anyone knows what command lets me find old code that I removed (instead of commenting out) using TFS or SVN? (No, history/log doesn’t count)