Question

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Is it possible to write good and understandable code without any comments?

When coding often I hear that if comments are needed then it means that the code is too hard to understand. I agree that code should be readable but often the language itself makes the code hard to follow, because of “plumbing” and strange syntax. The languages I use most often are:

Java
Mootools
Ruby
Erlang

Any tips would be appreciated?
Thanks

Answer 1

I don’t think you can normally write code without comments.

Briefly, the code documents how. The comments document why.

I would expect the comments to indicate the conditions why the code has been written like that, limitations imposed by requirements or externalities, the impact that would result from changing the code, and other gotchas. The comments contain information that isn’t contained within the code itself.