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> Avalaxy, while I know companies use tools to do their thing... I don't, I'm old school.

You would do well to learn source control system (which these days basically means git).

Leaving aside the team/collaboration part, once you learn it, it's so incredibly freeing. I cannot understate this enough.

You can make changes to the code, and then go back with one operation (discard changes). You can work on an experimental idea (in a branch) for a few days/hours, then switch back to your main code to fix an important bug, go back and finish your experimental branch eventually, and merge everything together -- often with nearly zero effort. If you're supporting multiple release versions at once, you can fix a bug in one and often easily apply it to all other versions.

Ever have a situation where something just stops working, but you're not sure when other than in worked four months ago? You can arbitrarily check out any old version and test, and even - in a single operation - undo that change from the current version of code.

Can you do all this without source control (or with copies named by date)? Sure, but it's kind of like the difference between fetching water from a well using a hand pump and bucket vs having running water and being able to open a tap. Before you have running water, it's just life, and it's not that big a deal to fetch water, really. Once you have it, you could never imagine having to live life that way.

I do know what "source control" is but even when I wasn't working for myself, my boss made me still add this stuff, despite knowing at the end, upon saving, it would ask what changes were made.

We used something called "Source Safe" from Microsoft.

As for what's in the Notes and deleting it upon live production... that is the old stuff... in case the new stuff stopped working for whatever reason.

I guess we all have our own methods of doing things. Fortunately, I've not had major issues, though everything is backed up to it a server upon my completion of work for the day.

Man, you're banging rocks together and working hard, rather than smart. My sympathies for being stuck with a crapfest like sourcesafe.

Your status reasoning seems weak. Archive? Version control will have it in history. Maybe rarely you want it around for active references. Otherwise you likely don't need it.

The author bit is solved with version control. Much better than a line that can get bogged down with multiple authors or be outdated.

It doesn't feel like you're being old fashioned or old school. It seems like you're being a bit stubborn in your ways. Version control is a good thing. Perhaps there's better ways. Going your way with not having an sort of real alternative isn't right though.

Your other reasons like coming back years later can be applied to version control too. It's helpful to have commits that have diffs, time stamps, author, and other meta data. Imagine having to come back 3 years later without any of that. Commit history might help you remember and manage your project more quickly, efficiently, and effectively.

"Old school"? I think it's in most cases irresponsible not to use version control. Sorry to say, but it's "amateur hour". No better than "Rick".

I agree with one of the parents that "Purpose" is probably the most useful, but even there: at that level the code should be largely self-documenting.

I never said I didn't have version control.

To assume "at the code level it should be largely self-documenting" is to be a Rick. Comments are there to help everyone, including non-programmers understand what is going on.

I have been coding for almost 40 years and always been big on documenting code, but the problem is that code changes and documentation doesn’t always keep up.

Given modern tools I’ve come to the conclusion that documenting overall purpose and specific edge cases is more than enough. For example, the file header should describe its purpose, and anything in the actual code that’s not obvious should be commented. No more boilerplate function or file comment header. Git tells me who wrote each line of code, I know the name of the funcs and files, and I can see the inputs/outputs for every func with my own two eyes.

> I have been coding for almost 40 years and always been big on documenting code, but the problem is that code changes and documentation doesn’t always keep up.

This has always been a sign for me to tread very, very carefully. People who change code without changing the comments probably didn't read the comments, didn't read the code or didn't understand it - either way, if comment and code disagree both are probably wrong.

I agree mismatched comments/code is a huge warning sign. But I think requiring standardized comments is a problem.

When I started out every function had to have a header comment, with name, inputs/outputs, description of purpose/etc. It was significant extra work to keep that up to date. I could update a function three times in a day, and have to rewrite the comments three times to check it in.

And in the end, I know the name of the function. I can see the inputs and outputs. The only part of those comments that were occasionally useful were purpose, details of which often changed with edits. And in reality, as long as the function isn't hundreds of lines long (another problem), I can read it and discern exactly what it's trying to do.

Comments that were most useful said stuff like "this looks weird or dumb, but we had to do it this way because of this thing we and you probably didn't expect in the data/system/etc"

> To assume "at the code level it should be largely self-documenting" is to be a Rick

You don't have to be a Rick to write clean, concise code.

I'd strongly recommend reading up:

http://www.codeodor.com/index.cfm/2008/6/18/Common-Excuses-U...

https://blog.codinghorror.com/coding-without-comments/

What am I to make from: "while I know companies use tools to do their thing... I don't", if not that you're not using a version control tool?

It's not "genius behavior", but well accepted from people like Uncle Bob, that documentation should be in the names of small and focused functions, methods or classes, not in comments.

You said initially companies have their tools and you don't. Later you went on about simply using ftp and coding php. It sure seems like you don't use version control. At least not at a level that it should be used at in this day and age.

For what logical purpose would a non-programmer be reading your source code and only be able to accomplish whatever their task is if you adequately comment it?

I'm an old school surgeon... I like to operate without using anesthetics or sterilizing my tools.

Much like the old school surgeon, he hops on the production server and types very quickly to minimize website downtime.

"Time Me, Gentlemen!"

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/10/time-me-g...

rcs has been around ~40 years. you're not old school. you're sloppy.

Well, I'm glad you don't have to go into my code to see that sloppy tabbed mess full of comments and code :)

You need to seriously stop wasting time talking about this on HN and learn you some basic git.

https://try.github.io/

It's not hard. It's not like you're computer illiterate and don't know how to program.

> I have files on an FTP server and I write PHP code.

None of that prevents you from using source control.