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by veneratio 3358 days ago
Tagging TODOs is really useful. I can always look at source control, but that's more effort than seeing a name or bug number. At Google our linters are actually configured to create errors for any TODO/FIXME that isn't immediately followed by a user id or bug number: e.g. TODO(12345) or TODO(myname). I thought it was a little annoying at first, but over time I've realized how much faster it is to have that additional context.
1 comments

I think it's important to highlight that it's definitely about context rather than ownership when adding a name or bug number to a TODO comment.

"// TODO(dmi): update after moving to Java8" doesn't necessarily mean that it's _me_ that has to fix it, but that someone can come to me and say "Tell me more about this". This took me a while to learn/remember, but it's very helpful. The hardest part for me to keep in mind was that someone else's name on a TODO shouldn't mean I ignore it.