Re: Commenting Code (was Re: An interview question)

[phil stokes <philstokes03 -at- googlemail -dot- com>]

On 1 April 2013 08:49, Keith Hood <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:

> But when you get run over by a bus and your job is taken by a guy with
> only half your experience, that guy will need help.
>


I find this way of putting it unconvincing. Do we have an ethical
obligation - and is it ethical to spend our employers time now - engaging
on activities to ameliorate the possibility that our employers will hire
someone incompetent in the future?

I suppose this is a species of the larger argument about whether we should
document our working practices in general for future project owners. I know
that argument has been had on this list before, and I don't particularly
want to get it into it here (my view on that is its situation specific).

I'm more interested in what's the BEST argument for commenting code or
recommending commenting as 'best practice'. Thus far, I think Nick's given
some good reasons, but I'd be interested to hear more arguments, for or
against.
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