Today I want to write about why comments are so important in software development and how you can improve them. For me, the most disappointing thing about good source code is when it is insufficiently commented on. And this happens with closed code in the same way as with Open Source code. In the worst case, and this is usually the most common, the source code is not commented on at all. Especially in open-source projects, this is a disdain against the community reading your code. But even in internal software projects, I consider missing comments to be bad behaviour towards your colleagues, which should be avoided.
Of course, we all know the funny answers in this context. “Good code doesn’t need any comments” or “Take a look into the source code if you don’t understand something.” Is it laziness or ignorance not to write comments? No, I believe that many developers simply do not know how to write good comments. For this reason, I would like to explain here a very simple rule on how to really improve your source code through comments.