Comments, Comments, Comments!

Many attributes make up a good developer, but commenting has to be somewhere toward the top of the list. Commenting code is essential in any development environment. It not only benefits you, but the whole chain of product lifestyle.

How it benefits you:

If you take any extended absence from your project, coming back to it there is bound to be something you look at and go: Huh?!?! You should comment everything; why you are doing something, if something didn't work, fixes, features, etc. This will drastically reduce the time you chase your own tail on a project. Comment!

How it benefits your team:

Your team does not have access to your thought archive. That one function that you wrote a thousand times and nothing but a hack would get it to work, well your team does not know why you wrote it the way you did. I don't know about you, but I am not going to be too happy when I rewrite that same function another thousand times, just to get back to your hack and then realizing that's why you did it. Comment!

How it benefits the project:

Commenting helps the lifecycle of a project. Future updates, bug fixes, improvements, all build off of existing code. Developers need to know what you did, and why you did it. Otherwise the developers that should be improving the project, are now sifting through your code trying to figure out just what the hell it is you did. Comment!

The code should speak for itself:

This is true, and it most cases it will. But commenting goes beyond helping other developers. Think about the documenters who have to sit around and drudge up fancy wording and compile a help file that 5% of the end users will read or use. Your comments serve as a guiding light for them. Or how about the project testers, they are the ones who get to sit around all day fixing your lazy code. Remember that hacked function done over a thousand times from before? Well to the untrained eye, that just might look like a bug. Comment!

Commenting pleases your manager:

If for all other reasons you still are not convinced that you should comment, do it to please your manager. It's much easier to comment as you go, then to go back and document every step when your manager makes you. Comment!

There are many reasons you should comment, more than I could list here. Bottom line: comment your code, and make sure your team members are as well. Commented code is happier code.