My comments are just the code that didn't work but I don't want to delete yet because I might make it work except I never will be cause I already rewrote it so it does.
Programmer Humor
Post funny things about programming here! (Or just rant about your favourite programming language.)
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Are you me
Hey thanks for reminding me I made a clock squared in blender about 2 years ago
yes there is an error in the image, and no I'm not telling you where it is
at 6 it says 12:30
11 is missing the hour hand in the miniatures.
What a fun idea!
Is it on purpose that all clocks in this are coupled at the 3 o'clock position? I assume all the clocks go the same speed. Then the large clock and all the smaller clocks at the 3 o'clock position (there are 13 of them) would show the same time. E.g. in one hour, the 12 o'clock position would show 1 o'clock, but the large clock and all the clocks on the 3 o'clock position would show 4 o'clock.
Oh and why is it a clock squared if you have three layers of clocks? Isn't it cubed then?
I was mainly thinking of making some recursion hence why all the subclocks mirror the parent clock (for that given hour). Also I called it clock squared because I didn't think the resolution would be high enough for people to actually notice the 3rd level of clocks.
You might notice that some dials don't really align with the hours they're supposed to show. That's because I had to place a bunch of clocks at varying hours with a viewport rendering the parent clock at an angle that probably made it difficult to spot the errors. I rendered it once and didn't bother re-rendering it once I saw the errors :)
Haha yes, recursion is always fun!
Although I'm still confused on what the clock would show in an hour. Because if the subclocks mirror the parent clock at the given time, then they would all be stuck to the hour they are positioned on? Or if they can move then the sublcocks are coupled to 3 o'clock of the main clock. But well, it is all hypothetical anyways :D
Idk maybe the sub clocks are static and never change :3
why do you hate Zoomers?
As a zoomer myself i do find it funny :3
For context on the reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/1but3c2/wait_zoomers_actually_cant_read_analogue_clocks_i/
I know I’m probably doing it wrong but this is how I feel whenever I write unit tests
Asking as a newbie programmer: how do you suggest we write comments that explain the 'why' part of the code? I understand writing comments explaining the 'what' part makes them redundant, but I feel like writing it the former way isn't adding much help either. I mean, if I created code for a clock, is writing "It helps tell what time it is" better than writing "It is a clock" ?
It would really help if someone could give a code snippet that clearly demonstrates how commenting the 'correct' way is clearly better than the way we are used to.
I recognize three kinds of comments that have different purposes.
The first kind are doc block comments. These are the ones that appear above functions, classes, class properties, methods. They usually have a distinct syntax with tags, like:
/*
* A one-line description of this function's job.
*
* Extra details that get more specific about how to use this function correctly, if needed.
*
* @param {Type} param1
* @param {Type} param2
* returns {Type}
*/
function aFunctionThatDoesAThing(param1, param2) {
// ...
}
The primary thing this is used for is automatic documentation generators. You run a program that scans your codebase, looks for these special comments, and automatically builds a set of documentation that you could, say, publish directly to a website. IDEs can also use them for tooltip popups. Generally, you want to write these like the reader won't have the actual code to read. Because they might not!
The second kind is standalone comments. They take up one or more lines all to themselves. I look at these like warning signs. When there's something about the upcoming chunk of code that doesn't tell the whole story obviously by itself. Perhaps something like:
/* The following code is written in a weird way on purpose.
I tried doing , but it causes a weird bug.
Please do not refactor it, it will break. */
Sometimes it's tempting to use a standalone comment to explain what dense, hard-to-read code is doing. But ideally, you'd want to shunt it off to a function named what it does instead, with a descriptive doc comment if you can't cram it all into a short name. Alternatively, rewrite the code to be less confusing. If you literally need the chunk of code to be in its confusing form, because a less confusing way doesn't exist or doesn't work, then this kind of comment explaining why is warranted.
The last kind are inline comments. More or less the same use case as above, the only difference being they appear on the same line as code, usually at the very end of the line:
dozen = 12 + 1; // one extra for the baker!
In my opinion, these comments have the least reason to exist. Needing one tends to be a signal of a code smell, where the real answer is just rewriting the code to be clearer. They're also a bit harder to spot, being shoved at the ends of lines. Especially true if you don't enforce maximum line length rules in your codebase. But that's mostly personal preference.
There's technically a fourth kind of comment: commented-out code. Where you select a chunk of code and convert it to a comment to "soft-delete" it, just in case you may want it later. I highly recommend against this. This is what version control software like Git is for. If you need it again, just roll back to it. Don't leave it to rot in your codebase taking up space in your editor and being an eyesore.
"tells the user the current time" would be an excellent comment for a clock
I'm not the best at commenting my code, but generally I just try to think of what information I'd want to know if looking at this 10 years from now
Imo comments are best used sparingly, don't bother commenting something that anyone with a basic understanding of programming would understand straight away by reading the code
Functions should generally be commented with what parameters are and what they're for, plus what they output
use reqwest::Client;
// create a http client class that all other files can import
// so as to only create one instance globally
pub struct HttpClient {
client: Client,
}
impl HttpClient {
pub fn new() -> Self {
HttpClient {
client: Client::new(),
}
}
pub fn client(&self) -> &Client {
&self.client
}
}
Here's an example where if I were to stumble onto this file 10 years from now, I might think wtf is this looking at it out of context, the comment explains why it exists and what it's used for
(we'll ignore the fact I totally didn't just add this comment because I suck at commenting personal projects)
the "what" is interesting on interfaces or when you generate documentation with some tool like sphinx or javadoc.
the "why" is interesting when you are somewhere inside a class or function and do something in a "strange" way, to work around a quirk in the codebase or something like that, or when you employ optimizations that make the code harder to read or atleast less obvious why somethings are done.
Making up an example on the spot is kinda difficult for me, but I'd look at it this way with a bold statement, you should hope that most code won't need comments. Let's exclude documentation blocks that are super ok to be redundant as they should give a nice, consistent, human readable definition of what x thing does (function, constant, enum, etc.) and maybe even how to use it if it's non-intuitive or there are some quirks with it.
After that, you delve in the actual meat of the code, there are ways to make it more self explanatory like extracting blocks of stuff into functions, even when you don't think it'll be used again, to be used with care though, as not to make a million useless functions, better is to structure your code so that an API is put into place, enabling you to write code that naturally comes out high level enough to be understood just by reading, this thing is very difficult for me to pinpoint though, because we think of high level code as abstractions, something that turns the code you write from describing the what rather than the how, but really, it's a matter of scope, a print statement is high level if the task is to print, but if the task is to render a terminal interface then the print becomes low level, opposite is also true, if you go down and your task is to put a character onto stdout, then the assembly code you'd write might be high level. What I mean to say is that, once you have defined the scope, then you can decide what level of knowledge to expect of the reader when looking at your code, from there, if some process feels fairly convoluted, but it doesn't make sense to build an abstraction over it, then it is a good place to put a comment explaining why you did that, and, if it's not really clear, even what that whole block does
Interesting to see your opinion on how commenting shouldn't be mandatory. I specifically go the extra mile to ensure my code is readable for everyone, by naming my variables and functions to be as self-explanatory as possible and breaking down long expressions to store chunks in variables. This is why I was feeling confused as to what more I could add to explain my code better, though I must admit there are still considerable complex portions in some of my projects that would appreciate similar simplification.
Yes, I feel like some kind of bell should ring in your brain when something needs to be commented, most often if you struggled to write out the solution or you had to do a lot of digging from various places to achieve the final resulting piece of code, it doesn't make a lot of sense to pressure yourself into thinking you should comment everything, because some knowledge has to be assumed, nowadays you could even add that if someone completely extraneous to the codebase entered without any knowledge, they could feed the parts of code they need to understand into some LLM to get a feel for what they're looking at, with further feedback from actual devs though, you never know what random bs they might write.
Good one on the variables to store results of expressions, I agree with that method, though I always forget to do that because I get so lost in the pride of writing that convoluted one-liner that I think, "oh yeah, this is perfectly beautiful and understandable 😇", I have to check myself more on that.
complex portions in some of my projects that would appreciate similar simplification
So I'm not alone on that haha.
This is why [...] better
Sorry, what's the subject of that?
This is unfortunate for new programmers cause I think it's some kind of learned instinct rather than a hard rule
That's true, I don't know how it could be described as a hard rule though
This is why [...] better
Sorry, what's the subject of that?
I was just referring to my original question i.e. how I should write comments in my code to explain its working if I have already done so in the code itself
oh, I get it now
My comment game has gotten far better since I started doing live code reviews. Essentially I ask myself, “Would I feel the need to explain this to someone during a code review?” and if the answer is yes I add a comment.
Unless you're writing something in the open source world, rarely does any code need comments at all.
That’s a hot take. If you want your code to be maintainable at all, it needs comments. If you’re part of a team, write comments for them. If someone else may take over your project after you move on, leave comments for them. And have you ever tried to read uncommented code you wrote a year ago? Leave comments for yourself.
Self-explainable, when you aren't writing spaghetti Perl scripts.
//forgive my sins, it took me 2 hours to nail down this arcane spell. if anyone touches this they will know my wrath
=(/&)((//((%=)(&)%)(&()
Checked one of mine:
# get path to the download directory
Oh, ok.
The code directly below:
function getPathToUploadDirectory() {
return config.tmp_path
}
I like to include profanity in all my comments for spiciness.
"I don't know why, but if you remove this comment it fucks up everything."
I saw this comment in a piece of code once; I left it there as not to tempt the fates.
This cracked me. Never risk, lmao.
I know some folks are joking about and dunking on this, but in modern times, I have justification. Call me lazy, but I have found myself writing out these comments and then letting the AI take over to at least give me a sketch of an implementation. Works reasonably well and saves me a lot of time and effort. Mostly I don't bother to remove them, though I usually edit them a bit.
On the other hand, there are factions within my colleagues who steadfastly insist that commenting is unnecessary and to some degree even potentially harmful, and that if you feel the need to comment your code, it means your code should be improved so that it's obvious what it is doing without the need for comments.
At least docblocking a summary above every method is always good. You can automatically generate documentation this way.
basically how it feel when a professor requires u comment every single line of code u write to explain it. I know people tend to drop out of real engineering to do programing but an entire 4 years of this bullshit as opposed to just a couple classes sounds way worse than calc 3 or differential equations.
Made a comment
A true Klingon never uses comments.
@Vordimous Wait for daylight saving time...
Is that when all of the devs write the comments on the line after the code?
someone else's code would have the wrong values.
Will each level of smaller clocks get one additional hour?
@Vordimous @linuxgal when I see this sort of thing when reviewing PRs, I write words to the effect of "tell me WHY it's doing that, not WHAT it's doing". The "what" is usually obvious from the code and thus not worthy of comment. The "why" will enlighten your colleagues (and future you).