Comments Memes

Junior dev: "How do I remember what my code does?" Senior dev: "That's the neat part. You don't." The true mark of seniority isn't remembering your code—it's embracing the chaos. Documentation? Comments? Those are myths we tell bootcamp grads. Real developers just stare at their own code like it's written in ancient Sumerian and mutter "who wrote this garbage?" before realizing it was themselves, last Tuesday.

Just like vampires hiss at sunlight and Superman cowers from kryptonite, programmers have developed an evolutionary defense mechanism against documentation. "Why waste time writing docs when the code is right there?" we say, while secretly knowing our variable named temp_var_final_v2_ACTUAL tells absolutely no story whatsoever. Future maintainers will just have to develop telepathy or join the growing support group of developers who cry in server rooms.

The sudden transformation from feral cave dweller to corporate documentation champion is truly a sight to behold. When no one's watching, we're all just throwing variables together like a toddler making soup. But the moment someone peers over our shoulder, suddenly we're writing comments that would make an academic thesis look underdeveloped. It's like how you instantly clean your room when guests announce they're coming over. Nothing motivates proper documentation like the fear of another human witnessing your coding barbarism. The psychological phenomenon of "perceived professional competence" in its natural habitat.

The eternal truth of software development captured in one painful analogy. Good documentation is like finding a unicorn riding a rainbow - rare but magnificent. Bad documentation is that cryptic comment from 2013 that just says "fixes stuff." But when you're staring into the void of an undocumented codebase at 2AM, even that single-line README feels like a lifeline thrown by a merciful deity. The bar is so low it's practically a tripping hazard.

The joke hinges on the double meaning of "executed" in programming versus real life. In code, statements are lines that perform actions and are "executed" by the compiler or interpreter. Comments, on the other hand, are ignored during execution—they're just notes for humans. So the statement was "scared" because it was going to be executed (run by the computer), while the comment could chill out since it would be completely ignored. It's basically the programming equivalent of being sent to the gallows versus getting a free pass!

When given the choice between proper multi-line comments /* */ and just spamming single-line comments // // // // , developers consistently choose chaos. It's not laziness—it's a lifestyle choice. The satisfaction of hammering that forward slash twice is just too powerful to resist. Plus, who needs structure when you can create a beautiful staircase of comment slashes that perfectly represents your declining code quality?

The sign that says "THIS IS A STOP SIGN" under an actual stop sign is basically every junior developer's commenting style in a nutshell. Why write int counter = 0; // initialize counter to zero when you can state the blindingly obvious? Nothing says "I'm new here" like commenting every single line with its exact function. Next up: adding "// end of if statement" after every closing bracket. The senior devs reviewing this code are dying inside, one redundant comment at a time.