but it might save you and others looking at the code a lot of time down the road
What I find funny is that kind of argument. If someone works 8 hours a day, how much time is spent doing actual work? 6 if you are lucky.
Sorry, I've been down the path of WTF does this uncommented code do one to many times.
Sorry for causing a slight rant in this thread but obviously you guys didn't read this entire thread and the previous responses.
Code commenting is not all black or white. I was not advocating that you should never comment your code. My previous response summed up my opinion on the matter in that you should strive to write readable code then reasonable header commenting, then inline comments if it is not obvious what the code is doing.
Some people understand the scale of projects and how a good coding process and commenting can scale from simple projects to millions of LOC projects.
For small stuff, I have no problems commenting too much, especially if I know a junior programmer is going to maintain it.
For large projects, commenting must be STRICTLY managed as much as code version control and those who understand code maintenance also understand that an over abundance of frivolous commenting can actually HINDER the process and cost a significant amount of time to fix. Remember, you maintain the code AND the comments. They cannot ever be out of sync.
My biggest pet peeve for large code is commented out code. Really? If the code has version control, DELETE THE DAMN CODE, especially if it was WRONG in the first place! If people want to see what was removed, they can look through the version control system or repository.