[Info-vax] Listeners in VMS Basic, was: Re: Integrity iLO Configuration?

[Craig A. Berry]

On 7/1/21 3:24 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> Code should be maintainable.  

The code Arne posted is quite maintainable if you know the language in
which it's written and the library calls it's using, or really any other
language that has similar concepts.  But VB.NET doesn't have much in
common with DEC BASIC except for a few essential keywords like "sub" and
"function" and maybe some of the data types.  And the RTLs in use are an
even bigger difference.  Of course anyone writing or maintaining this
kind of code would be using a modern IDE in which hovering or right
clicking would provide all kinds of ready access to what the various
library methods do, the definitions of system-provided classes, etc.

> To be such, there is no such thing as too many comments.

Too many comments is just as bad a code smell as too few. Comments can
easily get out of date and people make mistakes by reading and believing
comments that no longer reflect what actually happens.  Comments should
provide some brief indication of what and why without getting too far
into the how.  In the case of a brief example like Arne's where the
posting provided the context, the absence of comments is not a big deal,
though one or two lines might have helped a bit.