What is the best comment in source code you have ever encountered? | Hacker News Reader

What is the best comment in source code you have ever encountered?

stackoverflow.com

127 pointstszming46 comments

  loop
    ...
    ...
    // sleep 10
    sleep 7 // Changed from "sleep 10" on 11-19-05
            // by jvj because Bruce in Buffalo bitched
            // that it ran too long.  Now he's happy.
            // The next time he bitches, change it to
            // "sleep 5".  That oughta buy us another
            // year before we have to rewrite it.
    ...
    ...
  until done do repeat

The speed up loop: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Speedup-Loop.aspx

Although I guess the punchline has come before the "joke"...

There's some great stuff in there. I really liked this one:

  // somedev1 -  6/7/02 Adding temporary tracking of Login screen
  // somedev2 -  5/22/07 Temporary my ass

(http://stackoverflow.com/questions/184618/what-is-the-best-c...)

There are lost of great ones. I especially liked this practical comment:

From the SO answer:

This seems to stop morons from messing my code...

// Autogenerated, do not edit. All changes will be undone.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/184618/what-is-the-best-c...

Then someone who's perhaps a bit too clever for his own good can introduce a new script into the build process so it makes some changes after the file is generated.

    #Christmas tree initializer  
    toConnect = []  
    toRead =   [  ]  
    toWrite = [    ]   
    primes = [      ]  
    responses = {}  
    remaining = {}

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/184618/what-is-the-best-c...

    char  program [1];/* Unwarranted chumminess with compiler. */

First by Dennis Ritchie in his regular expression implementation, and then subsequently copied with the comment intact into all other regular expression implementations ever written.

Reference for non-C hackers: http://c-faq.com/struct/structhack.html

I hate the way SO only remembers you for a week or two, so when you return, you have to login, going to a separate screen and so on. Why do they have to make it so hard? What's the advantage in forcing frequent logins?

Yeah, I know I should find some other StackExchange site, go there, create an account there, login there, and post this complaint there - but you know, that's just more of the same problem. </rant>

Yes, and when you log in it "forgets" where you wanted to go in the first place.

(They may have fixed this recently, but it was like that for the longest time.)

For a puzzled second there I thought you referred SO to significant other. I thought I was reading some obscure head-in-the-code-24/7 programmer joke.

There was a recent forced logout on all stack* sites due to changes in the way cookies are handled. If you haven't visited in a while, that could be the cause of it.

Er.. what? We can't reproduce this, and there are sites in the network I don't visit very often, too.

Please note we did force logout globally, network-wide in April 2010 (to mandate emails for Google GMail OpenIDs) and September 10th 2010 (to enable global auth for all users).

Also, we delete any sessions older than 4 months as a matter of course.

So if you visit VERY infrequently, you might run into one of those.

Details:

http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/04/openid-one-year-later/ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/09/global-network-auto-lo...

  /**
   * Today I'm getting discharged from the Army
   * Don't have time to properly comment the code
   * Call me if you have any questions: Name,054-XXXXXXX
   */

Now that is dedication!

My favorite of all time was

  // Michael, this is brilliant!

Yeah, somebody else had complimented a change I'd made a few months earlier. I still maintain that code occasionally, and it's the only comment left I didn't write myself. I leave it there just to get that little ego boost every couple of years.

From an educational app:

if($_GET["action"] == "score") {//that's what she said

  // I got this code from [Bob] of [Some other group].
  // I don't know how it works; ask him.

[Bob] happened to be my manager at the time, and hadn't worked for [Some other group] for around five years.

In a parser for a config file:

  if (line[0] == '#') continue;   // comment

http://www.dillerdesign.com/experiment/DD_belatedPNG/

(a PNG-fix for IE6)

// PLEASE READ:

// Absolutely everything in this script is SILLY. I know this. IE's rendering of certain pixels doesn't make sense, so neither does this code!

    // I have to put this part in because Ken is a dick

I once wrote a haiku to a particularly nasty bug where the offending line had been. I got a call years later when someone found it, they appreciated the humor.

You are not expected to understand this.

"This ain't pretty but neither are you."

/* Does your mother know you're reading this stuff? */

// Don't even ask

Found years ago in Adobe's ActionScript core classes.

You just obliterated like 3 hours of my time. Good job!

This one: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/184618/what-is-the-best-c...

From xterm's main.c:

     /*
      * 				 W A R N I N G
      * 
      * If you think you know what all of this code is doing, you are
      * probably very mistaken.  There be serious and nasty dragons here.
      */

stop(); // Hammertime!

I love it! :) The best one so far! I'm still laughing my ass off!

""" This code will be documented when someone get convinced that it is impossible to understand what it is doing """

http://www.flickr.com/photos/straup/2801691670/

http://textpattern.googlecode.com/svn/releases/4.2.0/source/...

$html = parse($html); // the function so nice, he ran it twice

Here's a category interface in a shipping iPhone app of mine:

    @interface UIScreen (AppleAreAssholes)
    + (CGRect) convertRect:(CGRect)rect toView:(UIView *)view;
    @end

I once left a comment to the effect of

// This code is pretty dense so I recommend you read the documentation first

Some months later I found a follow-up comment left by a fellow dev:

// Or you could just give up now

# Do this twice because its stupid and won't work once

# I apologize for how messy this is. Blame it on an inconsistent database structure. I did the best I could.

Good funny post, that was the best laugh I've had all day. Thanks!

while (6!=9) // Hendrix loop {...}

try {

...

} catch exception {

// Failed to load in the proper way

// Attempting to wing it

...

}

the best comment is the empty one ;)

Maybe something like this...

//How's my coding?

//1-800-NO-ONE-CARES

Although I had trouble coming up with what to say in the phone number. Any suggestions?

Not to be a grouch, but most of this seems puerile and borderline irresponsible to me. Source code should be concise and beautiful, not a repository for unfunny attempts at humor by programmers.

I agree.

seems to be a good place to get "-4" karma

You must be delightful to work on a team with

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