Re: commenting sub procedures

Of course it is redundant and a waste of time and code to comment by repeating the operation. Comments are for explaining things that are not obvious, and a comment header for a prototype, which is what I think the OP is talking about - this IS the place to explain why - to state the purpose and the contract with the caller of the procedure.

Inside the procedure, if I am using some way of organizing data in a string, and it cannot be done with a data structure (elements have varying lengths), then I need to document that with appropriate comments. I think that is the kind of thing you are talking about, right?

But something like this -

somevariable = 5; // set somevariable

is just silly but is often done, so I have heard.

:)

Vern

On 3/23/2012 8:37 AM, Michael Schutte wrote:

And the documentation could do that exact same thing if all you do is
explain the code instead of explaining why you did what you did.


Proc123 = bad. UpdateBOLCarrier is pretty clear. What do you document?
Procedure Updates BOL Carrier! Waste in my opinion.




On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 9:00 AM, Alan Shore<ashore@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

That would make perfect sense. Unfortunately, one person's
self-explanatory is another person's gobble-de-gook.

Alan Shore
Programmer/Analyst, Direct Response
E:AShore@xxxxxxxx
P:(631) 200-5019
C:(631) 880-8640
"If you're going through Hell, keep going" - Winston Churchill

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Michael Schutte
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2012 8:54 AM
To: RPG programming on the IBM i / System i
Subject: Re: commenting sub procedures

Screw documentation... Make the procedure self explanatory.



On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 8:14 AM, Vern Hamberg<vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Hi Dave

I would put them in both the prototype AND the procedure. Prototypes
are often collected in a single /include member - you need the
comments there, too.

This is what the wizard in RDP does - it creates a comment header on
both. I find that useful myself.

Vern

On 3/23/2012 3:13 AM, Dave wrote:

Hi,

Where do you all put your comments on your sub-procedures? In the
prototype, or in the procedure itself? Ours have always been in the
prototype, which I have never liked as they are too far away from
the code. We haven't yet got V7.1 but given that the internal
procedure prototypes become unnecessary, it seems like comments
should not be placed in the prototype.

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