That's like saying a book's synopsis shouldn't exist because you can just read the whole book. Sometimes comments can save you a lot of time and point you in the right direction.

[–] philm@programming.dev 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Nah, it's not, code is modular (IME should be kinda tree-structured), a book is linear.

So the API should be in your analogy the synopsis. And I haven't said, that there shouldn't be any comments. E.g. doc-comments above functions, explaining the use-cases and showing examples are good practice.

[–] potustheplant@feddit.nl 1 points 9 months ago

Books can be modular as well (ever heard of "Rayuela" by Cortazar?) But that's beside the point. The analogy is fine and it works.