Discussion on: Extreme Makeover: Code Edition

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Replies for: I like this article about comments. Only at the point where the code cannot be made easier to understand should you begin to add comments.

Ben Halpern • Jul 23 '18

I liked this post on the subject:

Good comments explain WHY, not WHAT, and 3 more rules on writing good comments

Andreas Klinger ✌️️ ・ 3 min read

#coding #comments #code

kip • Jul 23 '18 • Edited

Good post, thanks for sharing Ben.

Maybe this can be an simple example:

(function() {
    // Is necessary apply the `bind` method
    // to set `this` in the right context
    const $ = document.querySelector.bind(document);

    // more code...
})();

This saves the time of going to the documentation or being confused, but it is not redundant, is the main idea that I'm trying to share, IMHO the comments are useful always in the correct way.

Ben Halpern • Jul 23 '18

I love React's dangerouslySetInnerHTML which replaces a lot of documentation and comments and forces the user to understand what's going on. If you don't know why it says "dangerous", you can look it up.

Much better than

//This is dangerous, read this post about XSS:
setInnerHTML

Because the comment would never get ported across all the use cases (obviously, given it's a library).

But most code doesn't live up to the scrutiny of library code and comments, used properly, are a perfectly reasonable part of the toolbelt.

kip • Jul 23 '18

Yes, yes and yes !

I have never used React but dangerouslySetInnerHTML is so clear !

Nick Taylor • Jul 24 '18

Yeah, I've only ever used it once and it was to inject release notes into a component from an external HTML file. yolo.