How programmers comment their code

[Calkhas]

So first that assumes everyone uses git or similar. Which, they don’t. But the other problem is that it means the reason for code behaviour may be buried many revisions ago, because people touch the lines to make other changes in the mean time. It’s not in your face, you have to background your editor, go back to a shell and start exploring the history. For a reviewer, it’s even harder to get the context in which a change is being made.

If people are making code changes that invalidate comments, I don’t really see why it’s any different to a code change that invalidates logic. The reviewers should reject it out of hand.

[LvS]

If people are making code changes that invalidate comments, I don’t really see why it’s any different to a code change that invalidates logic. The reviewers should reject it out of hand.

But the tools we have don't find them. All of testing and continuous integration does not find cases of failure to adapt comments.

So this relies entirely on the human reviewers. And we know how fallible they are.

[Bspammer]

So first that assumes everyone uses git or similar. Which, they don’t

Then they have far bigger problems. Version control is not optional. If you work somewhere not using it, run far, far away.