I agree with the general guidance, but it's a general one and not applicable for everything. Some things cannot be expressed in a "do" way rather than "don't".
I agree with the general guidance, but it's a general one and not applicable for everything. Some things cannot be expressed in a "do" way rather than "don't".
I suspect rules with negations are not the same as don't rules, but unknown if really true, if so:
"when writing code do not add comments, code should not need it" may work
I use things like "Your code should be self-documenting, so as to require as few comments as possible. Add comments to explain "why" or give important context not apparent from the code itself, but keep them to necessary comments only"
But that's a much laxer rule. I don't think you can truly express "no comments, ever" without a "don't" rule.
Some of these constraints we want simply aren't possible without adding "do not" somewhere in the line, even if you prefix/suffix it with other stuff, as you noticed yourself :)