The other day at work, I came across a diktat stating that any bug fixes should be given a code comment pointing the reader to the relevant issue in our defect tracking system. Well, until someone explains the rationale to me, I’m going to ignore that.
To look at how dumb this is (IMHO), here are a couple of analogies to consider:
So, why the hell should I litter my C# code with comments that refer to a bug that’s no longer exists? What do I care if there was once a bug there? What’s important is that the code now works—we can record the bug fix in our check-in comments. What valid reason might I be overlooking for this behaviour?
Update: the diktat is no longer a diktat; more a recommendation. And it now sits alongside another recommendation that says “where reasonable, write a unit test to prove the existence—and resolution—of the bug”. Result. :)
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