[TUHS] Comments in early Unix systems

[rminnich@gmail.com (ron minnich)]

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so if you had an 11/45 with dual RKO5s back in the day with their massive
storage capacity, then you had source and your system with source and docs
could run out of L2 cache in a modern cheapo IOT board.

Now wouldn't that be a hoot. But how would we simulate pulling the RK05
cartridge out of the drive?

On Thu, Mar 22, 2018 at 8:05 AM Steve Simon <steve at quintile.net> wrote:

>
>
> > On 22 Mar 2018, at 01:27, Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 07:58:11PM -0500, Andy Kosela wrote:
> >> They also state: "Comments are meant to help the reader of a program.
> They
> >> do not help by saying things the code already plainly says, or by
> >> contradicting the code, or by distracting the reader with elaborate
> >> typographical displays.  The best comments aid the understanding of a
> >> program by briefly pointing out salient details or by providing a
> >> larger-scale view of the proceedings."
> >
> > I so agree with this.  Verbose comments suck.  Too many comments suck.
> > Why?  Because the code evolves and it's work to evolve the comments
> > as well.  Too many comments means they are not maintained and they
> > become incorrect.
> >
> > I *HATE* comments that are not correct, hate that so much that if you did
> > that we would talk, if you kept doing that, you are fired.  No comments
> > are MUCH better than incorrect comments.
> >
> > Terseness in comments is good.  Comment where it is not obvious what
> > is going on.  And maintain the comments like you maintain the code.
> >
> > I agree with Dan (I think) that coding is still a craft and getting the
> > comments right is one of the hardest things to master (and I agree that
> > Unix did it pretty darn well).  No comments suck, too much sucks, just
> > right is so darn pleasant.
> >
> > --lm
>
> on the commenting subject, and as it was Shannon’s anniversary recently...
> i always felt information theory relates well to comments.
>
> i.e. repeating anything i can see from the code (like “returns void”)
> tells me nothing.
>
> telling me something non-obvious (“allocate one more for end of list
> sentinel”)  really helps.
>
> -Steve
>
>
>
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