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Do you comment your code?

Survey period: 5 May 2014 to 12 May 2014

A repeat of our survey from 4 years ago. Let's see how things have changed.

Option	Votes	%
I add comment headers for all public classes, objects and methods, events, fields etc	567	40.04
I add comment headers for all non-public classes, objects and methods, as well as non-obvious logic inside these	372	26.27
I provide comments at the top of files	299	21.12
I comment any code that may be obscure (the "what") to a reader	881	62.22
I comment any code where the purpose (the "why") may be obscure	939	66.31
I comment on expected inputs, outputs and other results	277	19.56
I comment on exceptions, side effects or error codes	312	22.03
I comment on structures (loop endings, function endings etc)	169	11.94
I comment as a last resort when I can't make my code any clearer	363	25.64
I do not comment code.	89	6.29
Responses	1,416
Respondents were allowed to choose more than one answer; totals may not add up to 100%

The problem I have with commenting the "what" is that when making changes, you should also update the comments. If that fails to happen for whatever reason, the "what" comment is no longer explains the actual code. You're only going to find out when reviewing both the code and comment.

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