CollectionsIntegration/PySequence¶
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Notes/Discussion/Decisions on having PySequence{.backtick} implement java.util.List{.backtick}…
Topics¶
Topic: InitModule{.backtick}
ClarkUpdike Feb 26 2005
I had originally put in here a detailed anaysis of conflicts between the comments and the source code regarding the InitModule{.backtick} interface. The comments seemed to indicate that PySequence{.backtick} should implement InitModule{.backtick} but couldn’t because the class was abstract and PyJavaClass{.backtick} would try to instatiate it erroneously. But PyJavaClass{.backtick} was already correctly using reflection to give an error message in PyObject __call__(PyObject[] args, String[] keywords){.backtick} if an abstract class was passed in. So then I was trying to track down why the PyList{.backtick} wasn’t implementing ClassDictInit{.backtick}. It was providing the required static method classDictInit() but it was a do-nothing method and it wasn’t calling PySequence.classDictInit(){.backtick} like the comments said it should. So then I diff’d the changes from 2.2a to the tip with new style class changes. Apparently, all this changed with new style classes. A case of comments being 2 to 3 generations old.
<whine>
My personal opinion:
Under-commenting code is bad (only comment the unobvious)
Over-commented code can also be bad, and potentially leads to…
Wrong/Out-Of-Date comments are worst of all
This wasn’t a case of over-commenting, just a case of not maintaining the comments with the code.
</whine>
Of course, if I knew more about the code to begin with, I probably would have figured it out faster. But the comments are supposed to be there help the neophytes, no?