Not really. You clearly see that the intent at some point was to add two numbers, and not some fiction about ADD the diagnosis or what ever.

So which one is right, the name of the function (the comment), or it's implementation?

Rethorical question? You can't know that without looking on how the function is used.

You at least know something is strange from the comment.

Sure, but I don't think anyone would call this a useful comment - it's exactly the kind of comment which should be avoided.

Comments don't need to describe what the code does, but if there's an unexplicable line which handles an obscure edge case you better add a comment or even you won't remember why that line exists 3 months later.

Because comment is out-of-date. That’s technical debt. The comment is not the problem: the developer not updating it is.

You wouldn’t leave out-of-date code in a system, it would cause bugs. Why would you leave out-of-date comments? Oh, because you don’t like to write. Your strength is math and code, not writing. Now we get to the heart of the matter and not some ruse like “code is self-documenting.”

i mean, this is actually perfectly clear—in the sense it’s clearly and obviously a mistake either with the comment and function name or it’s implementation. the example isn’t great because it’s devoid of context that might indicate what specifically is wrong with it.

there are many standard means that should catch this: code reviews, unit tests, etc.

this stuff can obviously still sneak through, but i don’t think this is a good example of what folks are generally talking about here.

+10

Comment review is as important as code review.