Comment Your &*☠# Code!

A heartfelt rant / thoughtful talk arguing for more comments in code

You think your code is so clean that it doesn't need any comments? Or are your colleagues convinced that all comments are failures? Then this talk is for you!

Let's first dispute some common arguments against commenting code:

  • Comments lie?
  • Tests are better?
  • Good names suffice?

We find fault with all of them (and more)!

With that out of the way we categorize comments and analyze their costs and benefits. This wills us the means to discuss the end: Which comments will improve a code base?

Of course, every team has to come up with its own answer, but the vocabulary and ideas presented in this talk can help find it.

Slides

Here's the current version of the slides.

I also embedded them below. If they're focussed, you can navigate with arrow keys or swipes (they're two-dimensional, with chapters on the horizontal axis and chapter content layed out vertically). Use Page Up/Down for linearized order and ? for more shortcuts.

Video

Here's a good recording of the talk. I hope you'll like it.

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Watch on YouTube

Past Presentations

I gave this talk a few times before. See below for links to slides (as they were at that very event), videos, and other information.

2019

2018

2016