[mattlutze]

- The developer is usually the best person to write down the reasons a line was written. - It's quicker to add an inline note than to switch context to a documentation panel. - It's more complex to have to link a line to a documentation blob as in the example. - A lot of people don't use IDEs; something like that would be necessary given the lower-level work that would need to go on with timestamping and linking code and documentation bits.

"Good enough" principles make inline comments a clear choice, I'd think. Plus, seeing the comment in context may provide cognitive benefits; the comment and code block grouped in the same space helps recognize and associate their linkage in a way cross-highlighting one or the other may not.