this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2023
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Programming

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I just recently started documenting my code as it helped me. Though I feel like my documentations are a bit too verbose and probably unneeded on obvious parts of my code.

So I started commenting above a few lines of code and explain it in a short sentence what I do or why I do that, then leave a space under it for the next line so it is easier to read.

What do you think about this?

Edit: real code example from one of my projects:

async def discord_login_callback(request: HttpRequest) -> HttpResponseRedirect:
    async def exchange_oauth2_code(code: str) -> str | None:
        data = {
            'grant_type': 'authorization_code',
            'code': code,
            'redirect_uri': OAUTH2_REDIRECT_URI
        }
        headers = {
            'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
        }
        async with httpx.AsyncClient() as client:
            # get user's access and refresh tokens
            response = await client.post(f"{BASE_API_URI}/oauth2/token", data=data, headers=headers, auth=(CLIENT_ID, CLIENT_SECRET))
            if response.status_code == 200:
                access_token, refresh_token = response.json()["access_token"], response.json()["refresh_token"]

                # get user data via discord's api
                user_data = await client.get(f"{BASE_API_URI}/users/@me", headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {access_token}"})
                user_data = user_data.json()
                user_data.update({"access_token": access_token, "refresh_token": refresh_token}) # add tokens to user_data

                return user_data, None
            else:
                # if any error occurs, return error context
                context = generate_error_dictionary("An error occurred while trying to get user's access and refresh tokens", f"Response Status: {response.status_code}\nError: {response.content}")
                return None, context

    code = request.GET.get("code")
    user, context = await exchange_oauth2_code(code)

    # login if user's discord user data is returned
    if user:
        discord_user = await aauthenticate(request, user=user)
        await alogin(request, user=discord_user, backend="index.auth.DiscordAuthenticationBackend")
        return redirect("index")
    else:
        return render(request, "index/errorPage.html", context)
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[–] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 14 points 10 months ago

Good comments describe the "why" or rationale. Not the what. This function doesn't need any comments at all... but it needs a far better name like logAndReturnSeed. That said, depending on what specifically you're doing I'd probably advocate for not printing the value in this function because it feels weird so I'd probably end up writing this function like

def function rollD10() -> int:
    return random.randInt(1, 10)

And I, as a senior developer, think that level of comments is great.

You mentioned that this is a trivial example but the main skill in commenting is using it sparingly when it adds value - so a more realistic example might be more helpful.