[ajarmst]

When I teach coding, I used to have a similar lesson around commenting code: "don't tell me you're creating a variable. I can read the code. Tell me what the variable is for."

I still mostly abide by that, but I've had an opportunity to write some larger programs for the first time in a few years (a hazard of teaching programming is you find yourself working with pretty small programs), and noticed that the comments started become a part of my conversation with myself. I'd drop in quick reminders for what I intended to do in a function before going moving on to something else. When I came back and then wrote the code corresponding to the comments: well now it's redundant, but it wasn't. I stopped cleaning that stuff up (I'd clean it if I had to present or publish it, of course). The comments kept some context of my thinking when I wrote it, what order I did things in, etc. It would be gibberish for another, but it wasn't for me, especially after a few days, or even longer. (Note: I'm a pretty fast touch-typist, so muttering to myself doesn't invoke much of a productivity cost. I also note that commit messages are another great place to capture that sort of context for yourself, and not using that opportunity is a sin.)

So, I've changed some of my greybeard aphorisms around commenting: "When commenting code, consider the needs of the person who will be maintaining this code. Who will probably be you. Be nice to future you."