Use of comments in programming

Proper use of commenting can make code maintenance much easier, as well as. With comments you can place notifications and reminders in. Comments provide clarity to the c source code allowing others to better understand what the code was intended to accomplish and greatly. Single line comments are useful where you need to comment or hide twothree words however multiple line comments are useful where you want to hide multiple lines of code. Proper use of commenting can make code maintenance much easier, as well as helping make finding bugs faster. A quick scan of it reveals no info as to which of our 250 students wrote this code. And most important human audience that would read your code would be, you. Its good practice to get into the habit of putting java comments into your source code to enhance its readability and clarity for yourself and other programmers. As a general rule, the code explains to the computer and programmer what is being done. This is as important in coding as in writing technical papers. Dec 18, 2006 a blog by jeff atwood on programming and human factors. This syntax is derived from comments in most highlevel languages. I found this medium article today, and it made me think about my own comment usage when programming. Comments are specially marked lines of text in the program that are not.

Comments can be spread across several lines print hello world. At most basic level, through the code you are communicating with the machine and through the code you are communicating with the human audience. In lua, comments start with a doublehyphen and run until the end of the line. Apr 04, 2017 now, a lot of people use comments to describe what some confusing code does. These comments help anyone reading the source code. If you want to copy the comments from a specific member you can use the cref attribute to specify the member. Programmers use comments to annotate a program and help the reader or grader understand how and why your program works. Block comments start with doubleshovel and run until doubleclosebox. Comments in many programming languages are discussed including modern languages such as c, java, scripting languages, and older languages such as ada, cobol, and fortran. Using plenty of comments in your programs is a good idea to explain what your program does and how it works. The uses of comments in any programming language, is to help the programmer understand what is going on with code, when it may contain multiple abstract data types, overloaded operators, and other such craziness that may be linking between multiple files, and get confusing without guidance in the code as to what is actually happening. By using a function header, you will need to use fewer comments in the actual code segment of the function.

How to use comments in mql4 mql4 trading automation. First of all, we should be aware that comments are the description written in the source code within some special characters so as to get ignored by the compiler while running the code. Describing what the code does, especially after the change. How to properly comment your code uncommented code the 6. Finally, there is a subtle but very real need for good programming to act as a reference for you. I call them documentation comments and clarification comments. Comments are used in a program to help us understand a piece of code.

To run a program use the options from the eviews toolbar. The main reason for including comments in programming languages is to improve the portability and maintainability of a. Nov 11, 2016 how to use comments in mql4 november 11, 2016 september 29, 2016 by luca spinello in every programming language you have the ability to add comments to your code, comments are not stricly necessary to run a program but they are very useful if you are dealing with complex code. Comment tags are used to insert comments in the html source code. When a method in an interface overrides a method in a. Clearly the existence of comments is solely for the benefit of the reader. Some development environments confine comments to a single line. Now, a lot of people use comments to describe what some confusing code does. This will make your program cleaner and more readable. Literate programming is a whole school of thought on how to approach this, but a very effective tool is doxygen also supports several languages, it can even use hand written comments in order to generate more than the bare structure of the code, bringing javadoclike documentation. Further, commenting is very important when writing functions that other people will use. Then if the logic is changed, but not the comment, it will be evident to readers of the comment in the future.

How to use comments in mql4 november 11, 2016 september 29, 2016 by luca spinello. Comments arent code meant for the compiler, theyre words meant to communicate ideas to other human beings. Single line comment and multiple line comments can be. When ada was designed, both block and endofline comments were in common usage. Comments can appear anywhere within a program where whitespace is allowed. Comments are used to increase the readability of the code for others and as well as for yourself. Javadoc comments differ slightly in syntax from implementation comments and are used by the program javadoc.

In this guide, we will learn about comments in python and their types. The following convention for commit messages works well for me. Most programmers put todo comments in their code to track problems they see and ideas they have, like a carpenter building a house who writes a measurement on the framing. In this post, we will discuss soft documentation comments in programming and why comments are important and where should comments be used. But after reading the article i think that would be much better for programming education to focus more on writing readable code rather than comment on everything. It has a name and a value, which can be numeric or text socalled strings. Assume following line of code in a imperative language which should be commented.

Variables are needed whenever you want to execute the same code several times, but for different images, parameters, etc. Comment programming, also known as commentdriven development cdd, is a mostly satirical software development technique that is heavily based on commenting out code in comment programming, the comment tags are not used to describe what a certain piece of code is doing, but rather to stop some parts of the code from being executed. This c tutorial explains how to use comments in the c language with syntax and examples. The most important concept when starting to program macros are variables. When we write a program using any programming language, we use various printable characters to. This paper covers the history and use of comments in programming languages, from the beginning of programming to the present day. We can use comments to explain why we did something, right there, as the. This is a necessary practice, and good developers make heavy use of the comment system. Concept of comments in computer programming geeksforgeeks.

Or, better yet, give yourself as much space as you need. On the occasions i do use in code comments, i try to reference specific typemethod names in the comment typename. It is downright annoying to professional programmers. Lua programmingcomment wikibooks, open books for an open world. The syntax of comments in various programming languages varies considerably. A comment is a special construct in a programming language that allows the program developer to mention additional information associated with the program. Most of ides have an ability to comment selected text and they usually do it with oneline syntax. Comments are used to make the code easy to understand. Usually, i dont use comments even when i need to comment many lines. I do not use inline comments, and i discourage their use by programmers who work with me. A comment in java is a bit of text that provides explanations of your code. When working with any programming language, you include comments in the code to notate your work.

In every programming language you have the ability to add comments to your code, comments are not stricly necessary to run a program but they are very useful if you are dealing with complex code. Whether to use third person or imperative when commenting single lines of code. Theres no one out there fantasizing about dropping a boulder on you for making them decipher your coding atrocity. For javacomments, to be used for javadocs, the developer documentation, need to be placed in doubleasterix comments, which have to be placed before your code. When a method in a class overrides a method in a superclass. Describing what changes were made to the code in the commit. Perhaps thats the dirty little secret of code comments. An illustration of java source code with prologue comments indicated in red and inline comments in green. If you are going to write a comment, give yourself at least a full line.

In an earlier post on the philosophy of code comments, i noted that the best kind of comments are the ones you dont need. Use text comments extensively to understand your program later. Furthermore, the comments protect your employers investment in your work by allowing a younger programmer to edit your software in the event you transfer or quit. To use comments in the blocks plugin, simply add add two slashes after the block to be commented, and add the annotation after that. Design issues, types of comments, and problems with comments are illustrated. In programming, comments are portion of the program intended for you and your fellow programmers to understand the code. Is it useful for a programming language to provide a commenting construct. Although comments do not change the outcome of a program, they still play an important role in any programming and not just python. So you can use whatever language you want to write your comments. Its super important though that you always keep comments up to date. You can add comments to your html source by using the following syntax. All programming languages allow for some form of comments.

Different programming language uses a different way of including the comments in the. They are added with the purpose of making the source code easier for humans to understand, and are generally ignored by compilers and interpreters. C style comments end at the first they encounter, so dont nest c style comments. Comments are text notes added to the program to provide explanatory. In the c programming language, you can place comments in your source code that are not executed as part of the program. Each and every language will provide this great feature which is used to document source code. Below are some of the examples where we can use different kinds of comments. They are human readable words intended to make the code readable.

Commenting involves placing human readable descriptions inside of computer programs detailing what the code is doing. Encoding the distinction between the three kinds of actions using the tense of the verb keeps the messages compact. My boss once wanted me to write comments just as much as i wrote code, and i couldnt see wasting double the time in developing the project, just to fancy his inquisitiveness to want to possibly learn programming by reading my comments to the code which i suspected was a desire of his. Describing what the code was doing before the change. Jun 27, 2011 yeah, i think this is funny, as i agree. We probably wouldnt need comments if we had programming languages that were expressive enough. Comments helps other with both coding and non coding background to understand what is being done in that particular program. I have a question relating programming and english language both. Like the article also mentioned, i am currently also taught to write a lot of comments in the courses i follow on programming.

In computer programming, a comment is a programmerreadable explanation or annotation in the source code of a computer program. The main reason for including comments in programming languages is to improve the portability and maintainability of a code. This blog is about why comments are important and how they help to understand the code as well as when and where we should use comments. They are used in a programming language to document the program and remind programmers of what tricky things they just did with the code and also helps the later generation for understanding and maintenance of code.

Remember, always use appropriate amounts of whitespace and good formatting styles. On the occasions i do use incodecomments, i try to reference specific typemethod names in the comment typename. Eliminating all comment lines is one of the very first steps performed by the compiler or interpreter. In java programming language, there are two types of comments. To neglect to take advantage of this, and use comments to paper over it is lazy, a disservice to and disrespectful of the maintainer. If the programmer who has written the code needs to refer the code later on,he can use comments. Comments are sometimes processed in various ways to generate documentation external to the source code itself by documentation generators, or used. In the grand scheme of things a compiler couldnt care less about a comment and just wants code to grind down to a lower common denominator. The good thing about comments is that they are completely ignored by compilers and interpreters. Comments are text notes added to the program to provide explanatory information about the source code. Using todo comments to keep you programming in the zone. Nov, 2016 most programmers put todo comments in their code to track problems they see and ideas they have, like a carpenter building a house who writes a measurement on the framing. Lua programmingcomment wikibooks, open books for an. Comments are the way to improve the readability of a code, by explaining what we have done in code in simple english.

We can create more readable and eye catching program structure using comments. The compiler ignores everything after to the end of the line. I do not use in line comments, and i discourage their use by programmers who work with me. This is a multiline comment that can span over multiple lines. How to use comments in python python for beginners. In this article we are going to see how are comments in mql4. The compiler ignores comments, so you can place any text you want in a comment. That commenting style you are emulating from your textbook is only a good practice when the comments are intended for a student learning to program. Read below for the details and possibly obscure reasons.