Re:How important is it to reduce the number of lines in code?
by timr on Friday April 12, 2013 @09:39PM
(#5542178)
You were responding to me, and no, that's not what I meant. ;-)
I'm not saying that comments are the "most important" aspect of system maintainability, but that they're one of a few things that are all of top importance.
Obviously, if you write spaghetti code, your system won't be maintainable, no matter how many comments you write. But that's a false dichotomy: you need to write good code and you need to write good comments. Neglecting either one leads to unmaintainable systems.
I'm not saying that comments are the "most important" aspect of system maintainability, but that they're one of a few things that are all of top importance.
Obviously, if you write spaghetti code, your system won't be maintainable, no matter how many comments you write. But that's a false dichotomy: you need to write good code and you need to write good comments. Neglecting either one leads to unmaintainable systems.