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Comment by hnriot | Hacker News Reader

"Most programmers have trouble coming back and reading their own code"

Hogwash! maybe if you're writing assembly code or similar low level language, but one of the express benefits of high level languages like python, scala, ruby etc is that they read (to a competent developer) like english (or whatever your native tongue might be)

Maybe you and "most programmers" you know don't write decent code, but I can easily read others or my own code if its well written. The last thing I want is a bunch of comments everywhere. I am all for the occasional comment (as an exception) because my eye will be drawn to it, but in general, unless your code sucks, it should perfectly legible without the need for excessive comments and documentation.

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You haven't worked in anything important, anywhere, ever.

Also if you think that you'd always remember why you did something, at some point in time, for all given circumstances, you haven't lived long enough.

> Maybe you and "most programmers" you know don't write decent code, but I can easily read others or my own code if its well written

You really aren't that good as you think. Your problem is you grossly overestimate your capabilities and achievements. We all were there, most of us outgrow it. You will too at some point.

thats really harsh.

playing the experience card is poor form and fallacious - also it wouldn't surprise me if that commenter is speaking from extensive experience.

i don't mention my 20 years of experience or background as a AAA game dev having touched every speciality with experience in high volume web and database environments, financial data quality software, language compilers and interpreters or anything like that... its next to worthless vs. what i can do, demonstrate or explain.

Yes it is harsh, in the same style of the parent comment.

Actually you're wrong on the experience card, for only one reason. What I mentioned is experience gained that everyone will gain, just by staying long enough in the game. Not because, I am super cool and worked in positions that few people can work.

It's the same thing, like when we were teenagers and we thought that we were right in every freaking thing and our parents just responded "wait until you grow up". Well they were right in most of the things, weren't they? Were they super smart? Was it relevant if they were? Nope, they just stayed long enough in the "game".

Same thing here.

i dunno, i like your example of parents. my experience of that was definitely learning just how naive and unprepared for everything they were...

i don't rate experience highly at all. quality of experience and what you learn from it is what adds value to that 'time served'.

plenty of old men will still dance even though they have been terrible at it for 50 years. they have had a lot of practice, but they still suck. there are ample examples like this

I agree with what you say and I find it quite orthogonal to what I said :)

You also gave an interesting example. Dancing is a specialized activity. Thus specialized talent and/or quality experience is required. But not all people go dancing. So I wouldn't quite include it in the set of common experiences that most people will go through in their lives.

I think your last paragraph is generic enough, we can use it as a reply to your comment:

You really aren't that good as you think. Your problem is you grossly overestimate your capabilities and achievements. We all were there, most of us outgrow it. You will too at some point.

I've done a lot of digging through other people's code, in general the only comments I've found helpful are those that explicitly call out defective code, and those that provide links to external references.

Writing clear code is the only hope for the poor maintenance programmer, your carefully written comments probably aren't worth the effort.

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