[alexjplant]

> "code should be self documenting

It should be to the greatest extent possible. Strive to write literate code before writing a comment. Comments should be how and why, not what.

> - ergo: We don't write any comments, ever"

Indeed this does not logically follow. Writing fluent, idiomatic code with real names for symbols and obvious control flow beats writing brain teasers riddled with comments that are necessary because of the difficulty in parsing a 15-line statement with triply-nested closures and single-letter variable names. There's a wide middle ground where comments are leveraged, not made out of necessity.

[Sharlin]

You misunderstood the GP - they were criticizing the way some programmers use "code should be self-documenting" as an excuse when they actually mean "I’m too lazy to write comments even when I really should". Just like "premature optimization is bad" may in fact mean something like "I never bothered to learn how to measure and reason about performance"

[alexjplant]

Updated my comment to refine my rhetorical intent. Thank you for the call-out.

[wombatpm]

At a minimum they should comment their GOTO’s