The Daily WTF's "Representative Line" series highlights a documentation comment submitted by reader Mark W., discovered in a codebase he describes as otherwise very well written and over 100,000 lines long.
The entire XML doc comment on the function in question reads: "Does something wonderful." That is the complete specification — no parameters explained, no behavior described, just a promise of wonder.
The column notes the ambiguity: is it "Christmas magic" wonderful, or the sarcastically droll "oh, how wonderful for you" kind? Tone does not survive plain text, so the comment leaves future maintainers to guess.
Mark concedes the line is not representative of the codebase as a whole — but as the piece dryly concludes, it certainly represents this particular section wonderfully.
Comments
No comments yet — be the first.
Open the discussion
No account or password needed — just enter your e-mail and we’ll send you a one-time sign-in link. First time here? You’re set up automatically.
Your rating will be applied automatically after you sign in.
Check your inbox
We’ve sent a sign-in link to …. Open it on this device — this tab will sign you in automatically.
Waiting for your click …
·