On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 10:38 AM, Buck Calabro <kc2hiz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 9/29/2015 5:34 PM, John Yeung wrote:
But I was speaking from the perspective of someone who is pretty weak
at SQL.
I'll throw my opinion-grenade and then run the other way... Is it my
burden to teach colleagues how to use some new bit of kit via comments?
It's absolutely not, and I tried to imply as much in the part of my
post that you didn't quote. I basically spent all of my last post
backing away from the suggestion (which was intended to be pretty
tepid in the first place) of commenting the "programming problem" (as
opposed to the business problem) being addressed by the bits of SQL
you and Chuck presented.
Is it my colleagues' burden to learn some new bit of kit by reading
uncommented code?
Believe it or not, I actually lean toward "well, kinda, yeah, it *is*
on them to learn it". But I'm not trying to be arrogant or mean about
it.
Here's the thing: If it's a "natural" expression in the language being
used, then there's no reason to comment on its meaning. Someone who
can't or won't learn the language well enough to understand that
expression shouldn't be maintaining that code. But if it's really
unusual, or especially tricky *even for the person who wrote it* then
I'd say a case could be made that a short, judiciously worded comment
explaining it is not unreasonable. (A case could also be made that
such code should simply not be used at all.)
I'm a little sensitive that the only part of my post that you chose to
quote was my statement about not being good at SQL. The reason I'm
sensitive about it is that I'm not sure you understood WHY I brought
that up.
I was NOT trying to say "hey, could you leave me some comments,
because I need help understanding your code". What I was trying to say
was: "hey, I am not qualified to say whether or not a comment is
warranted here; for all I know, one might be".
John Y.
midrange.com
