commenting code (was Re: [thelist] Tip)

Erika Meyer meyer at up.edu
Thu Feb 15 15:02:33 CST 2001


><tip>
>For HTML'ers (and others), comments are great, but don't over do it. If you
>comment your code a lot, END comments are not needed, because the next start
>comment should serve that purpose. Comments should be descriptive, but not
>verbose, and asteriks should be used sparingly.
></tip>
>
>??????????????????
>michael mcglynn
>interface designer
>www.blueripple.com
>??????????????????


Why?

I comment copiously, myself.

I chunk my text (rarely indent) & do beginning & ending comments.  I 
do ending comments because when you have nested tables, it isn't so 
clear where tables are beginning and ending.

For sites that have areas of changing content, I use lots of "plus" signs
like this:

<!-- +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -->
to show a division between dynamic and static content.
but I could use asterisks or even question marks.

I think people have different code commenting & chunking styles... 
the goal of course, is clarity & guidance.  How the goals are 
achieved can differ.

Erika
http://www.seastorm.com/

PS Maybe you don't want to do this on a corporate site, but I 
personally like the way sites like http://www.alistapart.com/ are 
commented, with curses at Netscape and so forth.







More information about the thelist mailing list