Auto Code Commenting Software, Free Chairs

sien writes "When you think about it, code is usually fairly mundane and simple. Finally someone has come up with a parser and lexer that actually auto-comments code, allowing for vastly more rapid coding. This amazing new tool is called The Commentator and claims to analyse source code as it's being written and insert the necessary code comments. It's absolutely amazing. Also the problem of seating for eXtreme Programming has finally been solved."

Please shoot me now!

[nacturation (646836)]

Won't someone please think of the children!

chair..

[Kaisum (850834)]

That chair is not big enough for some men's asses.

Re:chair..

[ReverendLoki (663861)]

Sadly, that is the only chair big enough for some men's asses...

Re:chair..

[lpangelrob2 (721920)]

They must not have designed that chair with XP in mind, because it looks like as soon as I sit on it the chair will lean over and break.

Come on guys! Test, build, *then* refactor...

Extreme XP seat?

[by Anonymous Coward]

I sure hope this 2-person seat [cenqua.com] can handle a 500-pound couch potato, otherwise my partner will by flying.

I'm confused...

[AnonymousJackass (849899)]

That chair -- the "PairOn" -- is it for intimate co-workers, siamese twins or for people with big, fat asses?

Re:I'm confused...

[tmasssey (546878)]

One of the principles of Extreme Programming [extremeprogramming.org] is paired programming: two programmers sitting in front of a single computer. This is a chair to "facilitate" this, including being able to elevate the chair to "standing height" for the daily standing meetings, also a part of XP...

Off-color Commentary

[Fox_1 (128616)]

Beauty, this will replace the legions of QA people that used to do my code commenting

I know it's an APJ...

[jacen_sunstrider (797955)]

But I can't help but think how this could ruin some programmers. There are some programmers who live by documenting their work before they actually write it, as a guide to what they do. In fact, in my assembly language class, they say this is the best way to do it (not true IMHO, but oh well). besides, don't you just get a thrill out of documenting a finished routine, going to compile it, and realize you copy/pasted over a large chunk of code? or, more likely, forgetting an end tag and commenting out ha

Re:I know it's an APJ...

[JonTurner (178845)]

Just remember, Ninjas don't forget endtags like other mammals.

And if they DID wipe out half their storage, I would be like, "Dude! You'd better look out -- that Ninja just dropped the PENDING_ORDERS table in Production and I think he's going flip out and chop off somebody's head!"

good code

[theMerovingian (722983)]

Good code doesn't require comments - the variable names should tell you everything you need to know about the program.

Re:good code

[DarkMantle (784415)]

rriiiiigggghhhhtttt, and the tooth fairy created linux

Re:good code

[metlin (258108)]

I don't think that's a nick that Linus Torvalds would appreciate munnnchhhhhhhh.

Re:good code

[RichardX (457979)]

Good code doesn't require variable names - the memory addresses should tell you everything you need to know about the program.
And remember kids, GOTO is the one true flow manipulator. Accept no substitutes.

This comes up in every discussion on comments...

[EvanED (569694)]

...and it's just not true.

Good variable names (class names, function names, etc.) go a long way: they tell you a lot about WHAT the program is doing. (I would argue that they can't always say everything too, but that's another matter.)

However, they don't tell you WHY you are doing what you are doing.

Also, remember there are other reasons for comments besides people reading your code. JavaDoc/Doxygen comments allow documentation to be produced right from the source. Comments such as /* FALLTHROUGH */ can tell sourch code analyzers such as Lint some useful information too. (Not to mention the programmer that looks at your code and has to think for a sec "did he mean to leave out the break there?")

this is why only one comment is necessary

[commodoresloat (172735)]

/* You're not supposed to understand this */

Re:good code

[bwalling (195998)]

Good code doesn't require comments - the variable names should tell you everything you need to know about the program.

You must be the guy that made the database at the last place I worked! The column names were complete sentences, including spaces and punctuation (it had never occurred to me that you could even do that). It was a real bitch to work with. Find the middle ground.

OMG LOTF

[sfcat (872532)]

This is the first funny article of the day. I like the self-importance option. In truth, a tool like this is impossible to actually write, but it would be cool since I never comment my code. But I don't comment for job security and I hate my coworkers. Just kiddin'

Extra Madden Option

[Shadow Wrought (586631)]

I wonder if it will read the code commentary aloud in John Madden's voice for extra money?

Auto April Fools Submitting

[MadMorf (118601)]

Ok, obviously /. has implemented an Auto April Fools Submittal mechanism.

None of the /. staff are actually at work today, the AAFS is handling all of these submissions automagically.

Come on 12am...

Re:Auto April Fools Submitting

[Jellybob (597204)]

I'd never thought of it that way... I guess it would make sense though - they can arrange the yearly company party without anyone knowing they're gone!

It's genious really.

Comments...

[arose (644256)]

/* I don't know what I was thinking */
/* This shouldn't work... */
/* I'll just insert a backdoor here, no one will ever notice */
/* SCO code here, don't tell them */

Nice example of poor commenting style

[Kelerain (577551)]

Very good humor! But on a more serious note, this is actually part of the problem with some comments. They duplicate the code. Comments like

i++; // increment i by one

really slow down the comprehesion level of most competent programers, because they have to filter out a lot of redundacy. Comment on purpose, on the more general function of things, etc. An automated program, could only really comment on the code that was there, and likely in an obvious way.

Not to detract from the marvelous humor of the 'article' but it was a good demonstration of the problem.

I can't wait!

[Stephen Samuel (106962)]

.... Until 12:00 Noon hits the International Date line.

It's 12:20 on the west coast. Only another 3 1/2 hours left.

(( On the bright side, though, I did convince a friend that I'd taken a job in Redmond as a shill for (OK: 'Spokesperson') for Microsoft. ))

got this from fortune

[mpaon (787734)]

Good programmers never comment their code; it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.

I wish all the software I saw was as well commente

[Software (179033)]

I've seen plenty of OSS and proprietary software code that had comments that *looked* auto-generated. Stuff like:

/** Sets the Home to a new value */
public void setHome(String newHome)
{ ...
}

I've never understood why people do things like this. Why not do something useful: specify what's a valid or invalid value of newHome, say when it should or should not be called. Or just leave it blank if you can't find something useful to say.

Re:I wish all the software I saw was as well comme

[eyegone (644831)]

I suspect that you're trolling, but that is a Javadoc comment. The comment text, "Sets the Home to a new value," will be used as the method's description in the automatically generated HTML documentation.

The personality check answers all questions..

[Gopal.V (532678)]

if you have any more doubts - look at the configuration [cenqua.com] screen. Also peek at the commented code - looks familiar ?. (linux [linux.no], etc..)

"Commentator" - you can get it for free.

[AtariAmarok (451306)]

This is truly a revolutionary technology. There is even a mode whereby it will be nice and friendly and propagate itself through "Microsoft Internet Explorer" without you even asking: inserting comments into all the code on your computer for you! They can't do it all for free, so don't you worry at all about the ''' home loan and ''''viagra comments that appear in all of your code. It it is just part of their business model.

Utterly useless to me

[Cheirdal (776541)]

I can look at any piece of code in any project I've worked on and see what the code technically does. What I can't do is look at something and say "Ah, this criteria exists in the code because of business rule #275 for customer X." Almost all my comments are related to business rules and what I'm trying to accomplish. There is no way an autocomment tool could analyze the code for the business rules I use.

Re:Utterly useless to me

[Cheirdal (776541)]

Damn you April Fool's Day! ;)

This one is giving my PHB an idea :(

[mollog (841386)]

The PHB wants to order these so he has a place to sit while micromanaging.

Missing languages

[frisket (149522)]

Damn, still nothing for XSLT.

Let's see, it's April Fools...

[syphax (189065)]

... so it must be time to head over to ./ and BITCH about the lame April Fool's jokes!

Me, I love April 1 because I can ignore ./ for a full day. Or at least a few more hours than usual...

PaiRON?

[red_dragon (1761)]

PairOn... Pron... PairOn... Pron...

I don't know, but that chair seems designed exclusively for eXtreme Pr0n-watching with the SO.

Oh, wait; I'm on Slashdot... nevermind.

// TODO...

[duckpoopy (585203)]

//TODO: remove this comment

Comments ... NO!

[jmartens (721229)]

Real programmers don't comment. If you did that someone might actually be able to figure out what you are doing. You need a code obfuscate function that takes simple functions and makes them complex and adds nonsensical comments, such as:

Before:
int i = 1;
while (i 1000) { ... A[i] ...;
i ++;
}

After: //Super Froopy node generator
int i=11; //Charge the Interociter
while (i 8003) { ... A[(i-3)/8] ...; //null node generator
i += 8;
}

Best April Fools I've seen :)

[Toby The Economist (811138)]

bitterness=9,profanity on

major lol :)

--
Toby

First Test Run

[Nom du Keyboard (633989)]

10 PRINT "Hello World" 'what a novice
20 END 'boy I'm glad that's over

Re:This is becoming tedious.

[Hamstij (831222)]

Hear Hear.

The fun of April fool's articles used to be picking the genuinely fake article amongst a whole heap of bizarre but true stories.

But this is just becoming boring.

Re:This is becoming tedious.

[Rei (128717)]

Perhaps it will be opposite this year? Picking the true article out of the heaps of really bad fakes?

Re:This is becoming tedious.

[Auckerman (223266)]

Every year slashdot does this, every year people complain. The joke is being fooled into complaining. The joke is people revisit the site like every normal day hoping for it to end and it doesn't. The editors are having a laugh at YOUR expense and you don't even know it.

Relax, go over to Fark, who's random joke page can actually be amusing and read about the Pope being note quite dead yet and come back to Slashdot tomorrow. If you actually miss anything real, you can read it then.

Re:This is becoming tedious.

[null etc. (524767)]

I agree, but this one is actually pretty funny if you read it (and are a programmer).

short term memory loss

[commodoresloat (172735)]

I feel like the guy from memento. This is the third time I stopped what I was doing to look at slashdot, and it's the third time I forgot it was april fool's until halfway through the story. You think I'd get it by now.

Clearly, I need to recalibrate the delicate balance of caffeine and cannabis in my system...

Re:Comments? Who needs comments?

[MyLongNickName (822545)]

It says "this guy shouldn't be allowed to touch himself, much less a computer".

Re:LOL

[xstonedogx (814876)]

Woah, not so fast. We better consult TBS [tbs.com] on this one.

Re:Enough of the damn April Fools jokes

[nb caffeine (448698)]

Dude, thats every day. At least there isnt dupes today... (knock on wood)

Re:ENOUGH!!!!

[jaysones (138378)]

I guess we'd better cancel Sense of Humor Day too, then.

Re:Dead horse....

[rayde (738949)]

oh come on, it's april fools. if you want some real news, go to CNN's Sci/Tech page for today. we'll all welcome you back here tomorrow with duplicate stories on how much we all hate SCO.

Re:*THE* Authority for all april fools pranks

[DJStealth (103231)]

PLEASE MOD THIS (and other similar posts) DOWN, this has been in every single article today, and he has got mod points in each one.

See user's other posts at
http://slashdot.org/~Urgo [slashdot.org]