> Converting the idiomatic math into non-idiomatic words would not be an improvement in clarity in this case.

You seem to be missing my point. It's not about improving "clarity" about the math each line is doing -- that's precisely the kind of misconception so many people have about comments.

It's about, how long does it take me to understand the purpose of a block of code? If there was a simple comment at the top that said [1]:

  # Calculate top-left point of the bounding box

then it would actually be helpful. You'd understand the purpose, and understand it immediately. You wouldn't have to decode the code -- you'd just read the brief remark and move on. That's what literate programming is about, in spirit -- writing code to be easily read at levels of the hierarchy. And very specifically not having to read every single line to figure out what it's doing.

The original assertion that "This code is so literate, so easy to read" is demonstrably false. Naming something "pt" is the antithesis of literature programming. And if you insist on no comments, you'd at least need to name is something like "bbox_top_left". A generic variable name like "pt", that isn't even introduced in the context of a loop or anything, is a cardinal sin here.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46366341

It all depends on how much context the reader has. For some audiences a comment explaining bounding boxes would be helpful; for others your example comment adds nothing that isn't immediately apparent from the code.

Part of figuring out a reasonable level of commenting (and even variable naming) is a solid understanding of your audience. When in doubt aiming low is good practice, but keep in mind that this was 2D graphics software written at a 2D graphics software company.

I think at certain calibers of work, like graphics programming in lower level languages, the best you can do is be readable and clear to others who are experts in your field. In other words, you aren't the target audience. There is likely no way to write this specific kind of code in a way that satisfies all audiences. I'm willing to concede then that the 'best' way to write this type of code is determined by the ones writing it, not us with standard views on software.

A graphics programmer does not need that.

To help understand, you need to see this code as math. Graphics programming algorithms are literally math.

You're asking for training wheels comments, which just get in the way for those who are familiar with the domain.

I'm sure a few graphics programming engineers might want calls to react useState(), useEffect(), etc. to be documented in a codebase, yet a react programmer would scoff at the idea.

Exactly this.

To a graphics programmer this can feel like call for comments to explain that

    i++

increments the loop variable. A newbie to programming might find such a comment useful, but to people who are maintaining such a piece of code that would be distracting line noise.

It all depends on who your professional peer is that you are writing the code for. It's totally fine to write for a peer who is familiar with the domain, as it's fine to write for a beginner, for pedagogy, such as in a text book.

Xyz makes sense because that is what those axes are literally labeled, but ijk I will rail against until I die.

There's no context in those names to help you understand them, you have to look at the code surrounding it. And even the most well-intentioned, small loops with obvious context right next to it can over time grow and add additional index counters until your obvious little index counter is utterly opaque without reading a dozen extra lines to understand it.

(And i and j? Which look so similar at a glance? Never. Never!)

> but ijk I will rail against until I die.

> There's no context in those names to help you understand them, you have to look at the code surrounding it.

Hard disagree. Using "meaningful" index names is a distracting anti-pattern, for the vast majority of loops. The index is a meaningless structural reference -- the standard names allow the programmer to (correctly) gloss over it. To bring the point home, such loops could often (in theory, if not in practice, depending on the language) be rewritten as maps, where the index reference vanishes altogether.

I respectfully disagree.

The issue isn't the names themselves, it's the locality of information. In a 3-deep nested loop, i, j, k forces the reader to maintain a mental stack trace of the entire block. If I have to scroll up to the for clause to remember which dimension k refers to, the abstraction has failed.

Meaningful names like row, col, cell transform structural boilerplate into self-documenting logic. ijk may be standard in math-heavy code, but in most production code bases, optimizing for a 'low-context' reader is not an anti-pattern.

If the loop is so big it's scrollable, sure use row, col, etc.

That was my "vast majority" qualifier.

For most short or medium sized loops, though, renaming "i" to something "meaningful" can harm readability. And I don't buy the defensive programming argument that you should do it anyway because the loop "might grow bigger someday". If it does, you can consider updating the names then. It's not hard -- they're hyper local variables.

In a single-level loop, i is just an offset. I agree that depending on the context (maybe even for the vast majority of for loops like you're suggesting) it's probably fine.

But once you nest three deep (as in the example that kicked off this thread), you're defining a coordinate space. Even in a 10-line block, i, j, k forces the reader to manually map those letters back to their axes. If I see grid[j][i][k], is that a bug or a deliberate transposition? I shouldn't have to look at the for clause to find out.

If you see grid[y][z][x], is it a bug or a deliberate transposition?

ijk are standard in linear algebra for vector components.

> (And i and j? Which look so similar at a glance? Never. Never!)

This I agree with.

What if not ijk? I know only uvw.

Pretend to be a physicist and use μ and ν.

i came from imaginary numbers which were extended to make quaternions.

i, j, k comes from FORTRAN's implicit types -- by default, names starting with I-N are integers and all other names are real.

this is much older ; Joseph Fourier was already using "i" and "j" for indices in the 1800s. See page 209: https://www.google.ca/books/edition/OEuvres_de_Fourier_Th%C3...

The context is i, j, k as indices in programs. No doubt FORTRAN was influenced by prior use such as you cite. But in no case does i used as an index come from i designating an imaginary number, which is what I aimed to refute.

Representing dimensions as indexable rows and columns of vectors or matrices was done on paper in the 1800s.