What's the least useful comment you've ever seen?

Question

We all know that commenting our code is an important part of coding style for making our code understandable to the next person who comes along, or even ourselves in 6 months or so.

However, sometimes a comment just doesn't cut the mustard. I'm not talking about obvious jokes or vented frustraton, I'm talking about comments that appear to be making an attempt at explanation, but do it so poorly they might as well not be there. Comments that are too short, are too cryptic, or are just plain wrong.

As a cautonary tale, could you share something you've seen that was really just that bad, and if it's not obvious, show the code it was referring to and point out what's wrong with it? What should have gone in there instead?

See also:

• When NOT to comment your code
• How do you like your comments? (Best Practices)
• What is the best comment in source code you have ever encountered?

Answer 1

Just the typical Comp Sci 101 type comments:

$i = 0; //set i to 0

$i++; //use sneaky trick to add 1 to i!

if ($i==$j) { // I made sure to use == rather than = here to avoid a bug

That sort of thing.

Answer 2

Unfilled javadoc boilerplate comments are particularly useless. They consume a lot of screen real estate without contributing anything useful. And the worst part is that where one such comment appears, hundreds of others are surely lurking behind.

/**
 * Method declaration
 *
 *
 * @param table
 * @param row
 *
 * @throws SQLException
 */
void addTransactionDelete(Table table, Object row[]) throws SQLException {

Answer 3

I've found myself writing this little gem before:

//@TODO: Rewrite this, it sucks. Seriously.

Usually it's a good sign that I've reached the end of my coding session for the night.

Answer 4

// remember to comment code

wtf? :D

Answer 5

Something like this:

// This method takes two integer values and adds them together via the built-in
// .NET functionality. It would be possible to code the arithmetic function
// by hand, but since .NET provides it, that would be a waste of time
private int Add(int i, int j) // i is the first value, j is the second value
{
    // add the numbers together using the .NET "+" operator
    int z = i + j;

    // return the value to the calling function
    // return z;

    // this code was updated to simplify the return statement, eliminating the need
    // for a separate variable.
    // this statement performs the add functionality using the + operator on the two
    // parameter values, and then returns the result to the calling function
    return i + j;
}

And so on.

Answer 6

Every comment that just repeats what the code says is useless. Comments should not tell me what the code does. If I don't know the programming language well enough, to understand what's going on by just reading the code, I should not be reading that code at all. Comments like

// Increase i by one
i++;

are completely useless. I see that i is increased by one, that is what the code says, I don't need a comment for that! Comments should be used to explain why something is done (in case it is far from being obvious) or why something is done that way and not any other way (so I can understand certain design decisions another programmer made that are by far not obvious at once). Further comments are useful to explain tricky code, where it is absolutely not possible to determine what's going on by having a quick look at the code (e.g. there are tricky algorithms to count the number of bits set in a number; if you don't know what this code does, you have no chance of guessing what goes on there).

Answer 7

Thread.Sleep(1000); // this will fix .NET's crappy threading implementation

Answer 8

I once worked on a project with a strange C compiler. It gave an error on a valid piece of code unless a comment was inserted between two statements. So I changed the comment to:

// Do not remove this comment else compilation will fail.

And it worked great.

Answer 9

I don't believe it. I came into this question after it had 22 answers, and no one pointed out the least possibly useful type of comment:

comments that are wrong.

It's bad enough that people write superfluous comments that get in the way of understanding code, but when someone writes a detailed comment explaining how something works, and it's either wrong in the first place, or wrong after the code was changed without changing the comment (much more likely scenario), that is definitely the worst kind of comment.

Answer 10

GhostDoc comes up with some pretty interesting ones on its own.

/// <summary>
/// Toes the foo.
/// </summary>
/// <returns></returns>
public Foo ToFoo()

Answer 11

// secret sauce

Answer 12

// Don't know why we have to do this

Answer 13

try
{
...some code...
}
catch
{
// Just don't crash, it wasn't that important anyway.
}

*sigh

Answer 14

Came across a file once. Thousands of lines of code, most of it quite horrendous. Badly named variables, tricky conditionals on loops and one comment buried in the middle of the file.

   /* Hmmm. A bit tricky. */

Answer 15

//' OOOO oooo that smell!! Can't you smell that smell!??!??!!!!11!??/!!!!!1!!!!!!1

If Not Me.CurrentMenuItem.Parent Is Nothing Then
    For Each childMenuItem As MenuItem In aMenuItem.Children
        do something
    Next

    If Not Me.CurrentMenuItem.Parent.Parent Is Nothing Then
        //'item is at least a grand child
        For Each childMenuItem As MenuItem In aMenuItem.Children
            For Each grandchildMenuItem As MenuItem In childMenuItem.Children
                do something
            Next
        Next

        If Not Me.CurrentMenuItem.Parent.Parent.Parent Is Nothing Then
            //'item is at least a grand grand child
            For Each childMenuItem As MenuItem In aMenuItem.Children
                For Each grandchildMenuItem As MenuItem In childMenuItem.Children
                    For Each grandgrandchildMenuItem As MenuItem In grandchildMenuItem.Children
                        do something
                    Next
                Next
            Next

        End If
    End If
End If

Answer 16

Default comments inserted by IDEs.

The last project I worked on which used WebSphere Application Developer had plenty of maintenance developers and contractors who didn't seem to be bothered by the hundreds, if not thousands of Java classes which contained the likes of this:

/**
 * @author SomeUserWhoShouldKnowBetter
 *
 * To change this generated comment edit the template variable "typecomment":
 * Window>Preferences>Java>Templates.
 * To enable and disable the creation of type comments go to
 * Window>Preferences>Java>Code Generation.
 */

There was always that split-second between thinking you'd actually found a well-commented source file and realising that, yup, it's another default comment, which forced you to use SWEAR_WORD_OF_CHOICE.

Answer 17

I saw this comment yesterday in a C# app:

//TODO: Remove this comment.

Answer 18

My favorite all-time comment.

/* our second do loop */
do {

Whoever wrote it - you know who you are.

Answer 19

a very large database engine project in C many many years ago - thousands of lines of code with short and misspelled variable names, and no comments... until way deep in nested if-conditions several thousands of lines into the module the following comment appeared:

//if you get here then you really f**ked

by that time, i think we knew that already!

Answer 20

In a huge VB5 application

dim J
J = 0 'magic
J = J 'more magic
for J=1 to 100
...do stuff...

The reference is obviously THIS ... and yes, the application without those two lines fails at runtime with an unknown error code. We still don't know why.

Answer 21

AHHHRRRGGHHH Just found this in some ancient code, bet the guy thought he was pretty funny

private
  //PRIVATE means PRIVATE so no comments for you
  function LoadIt(IntID: Integer): Integer;

Answer 22

Taken from one of my blog posts:

In the process of cleaning up some of the source code for one of the projects I manage, I came across the following comments:

/*
   MAB 08-05-2004: Who wrote this routine? When did they do it? Who should 
   I call if I have questions about it? It's worth it to have a good header
   here. It should helps to set context, it should identify the author 
   (hero or culprit!), including contact information, so that anyone who has
   questions can call or email. It's useful to have the date noted, and a 
   brief statement of intention. On the other hand, this isn't meant to be 
   busy work; it's meant to make maintenance easier--so don't go overboard.

   One other good reason to put your name on it: take credit! This is your
   craft
*/

and then a little further down:

#include "xxxMsg.h" // xxx messages
/*
   MAB 08-05-2004: With respect to the comment above, I gathered that
   from the filename. I think I need either more or less here. For one
   thing, xxxMsg.h is automatically generated from the .mc file. That might
   be interesting information. Another thing is that xxxMsg.h should NOT be
   added to source control, because it's auto-generated. Alternatively, 
   don't bother with a comment at all.
*/

and then yet again:

/*
   MAB 08-05-2004: Defining a keyword?? This seems problemmatic [sic],
   in principle if not in practice. Is this a common idiom? 
*/

Answer 23

The worst comment is one that gives a wrong explanation of what the code does. That is worse than no comment at all.

I've seen this kind of thing in code with way too many comments (that shouldn't be there because the code is clear enough on its own), and it happens mostly when the code is updated (refactored, modified, etc.) but the comments aren't updated along with it.

A good rule of thumb is: only write comments to explain why code is doing something, not what it does.

Answer 24

I just found this one, written on the line before a commented-out line of code:

//This causes a crash for some reason. I know the real reason but it doesn't fit on this line.

Answer 25

Would definitely have to be comments that stand in place of error handling.

if(some_condition){
    do_stuff();
}
else{
    //An error occurred!
}

Answer 26

100k LOC application that was ported from vb6 to vb.net. It looks as though a previous developer had put a comment header on one method and then copied and pasted the exact comment onto every method he wrote from then on. Hundreds of methods and each one incorrectly commented...

When i first saw it i laughed... 6 months later the joke is wearing thin.

Answer 27

This is an absolutely real example from a database trigger:

/******************************************************************************
   NAME:       (repeat the trigger name)
   PURPOSE:    To perform work as each row is inserted or updated.
   REVISIONS:
   Ver        Date        Author           Description
   ---------  ----------  ---------------  ------------------------------------
   1.0        27.6.2000             1. Created this trigger.
   PARAMETERS:
   INPUT:
   OUTPUT:
   RETURNED VALUE:
   CALLED BY:
   CALLS:
   EXAMPLE USE:
   ASSUMPTIONS:
   LIMITATIONS:
   ALGORITHM:
   NOTES:
******************************************************************************/

Answer 28

/** function header comments required to pass checkstyle */

Answer 29

The two most unhelpful comments I've ever seen...

try
{
  ...
}
catch
{
  // TODO: something catchy
}

I posted this one at the Daily WTF also, so I'll trim it to just the comment...

  // TODO: The following if block should be reduced to one return statememt:
  // return Regex.IsMatch(strTest, NAME_CHARS);
  if (!Regex.IsMatch(strTest, NAME_CHARS))
    return false;
  else
    return true;

Answer 30

One I've never found very helpful:

<!--- Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate --->

Answer 31

Just the typical Comp Sci 101 type comments:

I have threatened my students with random acts of extreme violence if they ever did this in assignments. And they still did. The sense in proper indentation, however, seemed to be totally lost to them. Goes to show why Python would be the ideal language for beginners, I guess.

Answer 32

Comments generated by an auto-javadoc tool (e.g. JAutoDoc). I had a team member submit a large amount of code that was commented like:

/**
 * Gets the something
 *
 * @param num The num
 * @param offset The offset
 */
public void getSomething(int num, bool offset)

Maybe it's helpful as a starting point, but by definition if the program is parsing the variable and method names to make its comments it can't be doing much useful.

Answer 33

Whenever I teach OOP in C++ or Java, I typically get the following:

// My class!
Class myclass 
{
    //Default constructor
    public myClass()
    {
       ...
    }
}

My policy is to announce to students that they would lose points for both insufficient and superfluous documentation

Answer 34

I have a lot of these:

# For each pose in the document
doc.elements.each('//pose') do |pose| ...

# For each sprite in sprites
@sprites.each do |sprite| ...

# For each X in Y
for X in Y do ...

I'm trying to cut back on that, though. :(

Answer 35

#include <stdio.h>
//why isn't this working!

With a c-compiler that only supports /*-style */ global comments.

Answer 36

We are maintaining terrible mess of PHP application and the original developer had a habit of leaving 'debugging code' commented out in the place. As he always said, it was because "in case he ever needs them again, he just uncomments them and voila, so it saves him a lot of work".

So all the scripts are literally riddled with lines like:

//echo "asdfada";
//echo $query."afadfadf";

None of them is actually functional in any way. They are mostly there to confirm that code execution reaches that point.

On a related note, he never deleted any obsolete script or database table. So we have directories filled with files like dosomething.php, dosomething1.php, dosomething1.bak, dosomething1.bak.php etc... Everybody scared to delete anything because nobody knows, what is really used.

Answer 37

My research deals with API usability and I've encountered a lot of comments which are bad simply because they are misleading, misplaced, incorrect, or incomplete.

For example, in Java Messaging Service (JMS or within J2EE), the QueueReceiver.receive class contains the following gem: "This call blocks until a message arrives, the timeout expires, or this message consumer is closed. A timeout of zero never expires and the call blocks indefinitely."

Sounds great? right?

Problem is, as my lab studies show, that users believe that comments cover everything. Faced with a situation where messages are not received, they refuse to look elsewhere for the explanation.

In this case, when you create a QueueConnection from the QueueConnectionFactory, it tells you that the messages would not be delivered until start is called. But that does not appear in the receive method.

I believe that if that line wasn't there, more people would have searched for it elsewhere.

By the way, my study deals with JavaDoc usability in general, and in whether people actually find the important directives in JavaDocs. If anybody wants to take a look, a related is here.

Answer 38

I have a very bad habit of doing this, especially when I'm on a roll:

// TODO: Documentation.

Answer 39

A very large source file, implementing multi-threading in a single process. In the midst of all the call-stack switching and semaphore grabbing and thread suspension and resumption was a simple comment regarding a particularly obscure bit of pointer manipulation:

/* Trickiness */

Gee, thanks for sharing.

Answer 40

Extraneous comment breaks. Normally, if there's a logical separation of flow, a line of comments like:

/***************************************************************************/

above and below that section of code can be helpful. Its also nice for when you need to come back later and split apart a large function (that started out small) into several smaller functions to keep the code easy to read.

A former programmer, who shall remain nameless, decided to add the following two lines:

//-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

After every single line of code.

Answer 41

Once I saw the following comment in some code:

//I know that this is very ugly, but I am tired and in a hurry. 
//You would do the same if you were me...
//...
//[A piece of nasty code here]

Answer 42

Here are my two favorites:

                // do nothing

This doesn't really help as it just takes up space.

Then somewhere further along:

        // TODO: DAN to fix this.  Not Wes.  No sir.  Not Wes.

I guess if I'm not Dan or Wes, I should just ignore this, right?

Answer 43

cntrVal = ""+ toInteger(cntrVal)      //<---MAYBE THIS IS THE WAY I'M GOING THROUGH CHANGES (comin' up comin' up) THIS IS THE WAY I WANNA LIVE

That's lyrics from an E-type song btw...

Answer 44

// initialise the static variable to 0
count = 1;

Answer 45

Excessive redundancy doesn't clarify what's going on. This one is from mobile phone firmware

/*========================================================================

FUNCTION 
    DtFld_SetMin

DESCRIPTION
    This local function sets a nMin member of the Dtfld struct.

DEPENDENCIES
    None

ARGUMENTS
    [in]me
        Pointer to the Dtfld struct.
    [in]val
        Value to set

RETURN VALUE
    None.

SIDE EFFECTS
    None

NOTE
    None
========================================================================*/
/**
 @brief This local function sets a nMin member of the Dtfld struct..
 @param [in] me  Pointer to the Dtfld struct.
 @param [in]val Value to set
 @retval None 
 @note None
 @see None
*/

static __inline void DtFld_SetMin(DtFld *me, int val)
{
  me->nMin = val;
}

Answer 46

Not quite a comment, but from the JavaDoc that described the API of a system I once had to work with.

setAttribute(attributeName, attributeValue)
Sets an attribute

Nowhere was it documented what an attribute was (they were not HTML/XML/etc attributes), what attributes existed or what values they could have.

Answer 47

/* FIXME: documentation for the bellow functionality - and why are we doing it this way */

It was a huge statistical program for an accounting application. We had never figured out why she had done it that - wrong - way. But we had to rewrite it, and paid penalty for the customer.

Answer 48

add ax,1 ;add 1 to the accumulator

seriously? that comment wasted 5 seconds of my life.

also outdated comments FTL

//the system can only handle 5 people right now. make sure where not over
if(num_people>20){ 

Answer 49

// Magic
menu.Visible = False
menu.Visible = True

This is from the UI framework in some PowerBuilder code I used to work on. The framework created menu items dynamically (from database data). However, when PowerBuilder was upgraded from 16-bit to 32-bit, the menu code stopped working. The lead developer somehow determined that hiding the menu and then showing it caused it to display properly.

Answer 50

One of the funniest I have ever come across.

// HACK HACK HACK. REMOVE THIS ONCE MARLETT IS AROUND

One that made me wonder.

// this is a comment - don't delete

Answer 51

// yes, this is going to break in 2089, but, one, I'll be dead, and two, we really ought to be using
// a different system by then
if (yearPart >= 89)
{
    // naughty bits removed....
}

(Not useful as comments go, but both are truthful statements.)

Answer 52

Once upon a time, I saw:

#region This is ugly but a mas has to do what a man has to do
Initialization of a gigantic array (...)
#endregion 
// Aren't you glad this has ended?

I was glad I was not that developer.

Answer 53

I just saw this in an INI file for a software (one of several dumped on me not long ago) I'm maintaining:

;--- if LOGERR=1, errors are logged but debugging is difficult
;--- if LOGERR=0, errors are not logged but debugging is easy
LOGERR=1

Well, debugging was indeed difficult, but I did not dare change the setting.

Answer 54

I'm suprised nobody posted one like this before.

 #contentWrapper{
  position:absolute;
  top: 150px; /*80 = 30 + 50 where 50 is margin and 30 is the height of the header*/
 }

Plain wrong comments are the worst kind of comments.

Answer 55

// Good luck

Answer 56

/// <summary>
/// Disables the web part. (Virtual method)
/// </summary>
public virtual void EnableWebPart() { /* nothing - you have to override it */ }

Answer 57

I work in two languages, (English and French) but my favorite comment was in french:

/* La passe du coyote qui tousse */

Translated it would gives something like this:

/* The coughing coyote trick */

It usually represented a segment of code that either seemed like a clever idea to the author and was completly obscure or it was a weird bugfix that even the author did not understand why it worked (think fixing a race condition by moving if statements around). In all cases it was poorly written code that scared anybody who had to refactor it because it was very hard to predict the effect of changing it.

Answer 58

/**
 * Implements the PaymentType interface.
 */
public class PaymentTypePo implements PaymentType

Answer 59

I have removed the name to avoid embarassment but this is a comment found in some production code. Unfortunately, as this was ASP code, referring to a VB6 module, and the customer was quite inquisitive, it was she who pointed out the comment to me whilst I was on-site during a consultancy visit. Luckily she had a sense of humour about it.

'I don't know how the help this @"%& works. It is a load of &£$! created by that contractor ---------.
I will just leave it in place and hope nobody ever needs it changing.

Unfortunately for me the code did need changing about a year later, at which point we found we had no source code and had to junk it and rewrite for free.

Answer 60

I would have to say that the least useful type of commenting I have encountered is second-language commenting.

I would rather see the comments written clearly in someone's native language than scrawled in a very poor approximation of English. At least then a native speaker of that language could translate it. ESL comments are often unreadable to everyone on the planet except the person who wrote them, and sometimes not even by them.

Answer 61

I once worked with a very talented assembly language programmer who had augmented the basic ARM instruction set with a number of macros. His code was made up of tens of thousands of instructions and looked something like the following - with macro instructions that I (a competent ARM programmer) couldn't read represented by ??? and an occasional regular ARM instruction like ADD:

...
??? R0,R0,#1
??? R0,R1
ADD R0,R0,#6    ; Add 6
??? R1,R0
??? R0,R0,R1
...

I can only presume that when you have a brain the size of a planet, it is too high brow to cope with those pesky instructions that are just too damn simple.

Answer 62

Found this one today in the middle of a block of declarations:

// other variables

Gee, really? Thanks.

Answer 63

I one time came across this little beauty in a VB.NET app

Dim huh as String 'Best name for a variable ever.

Answer 64

// return

return;

Answer 65

Taken from legacy code, this was the only description of the following if condition's purpose (the condition spanned 4 rows at 120 cols):

#-- Whoa, now that's a big if condition.

Answer 66

Just found this one today...

// TODO: this is basically a copy of the code at line 743!!!

Answer 67

This is a comment I wrote in a file in my group's final project in college

/* http://youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0 */

Answer 68

A classic that we always joke about at my job (complete with typos):

// Its stupid but it work

This was found multiple times in an old code base.

Answer 69

I had to fix a bug in 2000 lines of code that transcoded audio from GSM into mu-law (mostly using bit shifting and arrays of conversion values). The only comment in the file was at the top of the only method defined in it. It was:

/* Do the business */

Answer 70

// Undocumented

Answer 71

I was once maintaining the operating system code we customized for a Harris minicomputer (yes, this was a long time ago). Going through the scheduler code (assembler) one day, I came across a code block that had the comment "Begin Magic" at the top and about 25 lines later the comment "End Magic." The code in-between was some of the tightest, most complicated, elegant code I've ever seen. It took 4 of us to figure out what that little section of code was actually doing (VM switching).

Answer 72

Quoting this from memory so it might not be exact.

I don't know what the f*ck this does, but it seems to work so I am not touching it.

The funny thing is the way I found out about it. This comment was embedded in an access application some developer in our company had written for a client and distributed in an MDB. Unfortunately the code that "seems to work" bombed and Access dutifully opened the code window with the debugger highlighting the line right below the comment. It didn't exactly inspire confidence with that customer.

Answer 73

Someone's name or initials, and that's it. Sometimes these signatures define a block of code...

//SFD Start
...code...
//SFD End

Like the code is such a work of art they have to sign it! Plus, what if someone else needs to change code marked this way?

This should not be confused with the "blame" or "annotate" feature in source control systems - they rock!

Answer 74

I'm making some changes in a java class that has more than 1000 lines but without any comments. I'm newbie in their coding style so i can't help myself about adding a comment like

/*Added because someone asked me to add it*/

Answer 75

if (returnValue ==0)
  doStuff();
else
  System.out.println("Beware of you, the Dragons are coming!");

Answer 76

Ran across a doozy today. I should have expected it given that it was part of a VBA macro in an excel workbook.

a.writeline s 'write line

I found it particularly charming that whomever wrote this took the time to write a comment that used a space to clear up the incredibly confusing jumbled together "writeline" command, but didn't find it necessary to use meaningful variable names. Best I can tell a is short for "a file", and s is short for "a String" (because "a" was already taken).

Answer 77

Randomly, in the middle of code:

//???

Answer 78

if (someFlag)
{
    // YES
    DoSomething();
}
else
{
    // NO
    DoSomethingElse();
}

There was one guy who did that constantly, the rest of the team eventually convinced him to stop doing it!

Answer 79

This:

Yup, a blank space, left as a subversion change log.

Answer 80

I found this in a sample application for a mapping product:

// Return value does not matter
return 0;

Answer 81

I found this in a twisted program

# Let them send messages to the world
#del self.irc_PRIVMSG  # By deleting the method? Hello?

Answer 82

{Some Code;} // I don't Remember why I do this, but it works...

Answer 83

Actually I have a few of these,

// 18042009: (Name here) made me do this

Not very proud of those comments but I keep them to remind me why I did WTF code that particular section, so useful in that aspect.

Answer 84

I recently found this in some code I wrote aeons ago:

// it's a kind of magic (number)
$descr_id = 2;
$url_id = 34;

Answer 85

This comment was actually written in a different language, but I'll try to get the effect across in a translation:

//we trick it, if forbidden, as if it had already existed

What the comment was trying to describe was the way it was dealing with list items that were turned off - the code marked the item as a duplicate which should therefore be skipped. Yes, a very bass-ackwards way of doing things, but it paled in comparison to the nonsensical comment.

Answer 86

[some code]
// [a commented out code line]
// this line added 2004-10-24 by JD.
// removed again 2004-11-05 by JD.
// [another commented out code line]
[some more code]

a) WHY? b) Which line?

Answer 87

I saw an awesome code inside the AI part of a game:

..."AI code"...
if(something)
   goto MyAwesomeLabel;   //Who's gonna be the first to dump crap on me for this?
..."More Ai code"...

MyAwesomeLabel:
   //It wasn't that hard to get here, right?
   ..."Even more AI code"...

Answer 88

/* this is a hack.
 ToDo: change this code */

Answer 89

//I am not sure why this works but it fixes the problem.

This one tops the list for my useless comments.

Answer 90

// this is messed up, and no one actually knows how it works anymore...

Answer 91

//URGENT TODO: Reimplement this shit, the old code is as broken as hell... and we tought we solved all the problems

Just found that in one of my old projects. At first I laughed but in the end I was bitching because I still couldn't find the bug.

Answer 92

# Below is stub documentation for your module. You'd better edit it

Answer 93

someone send me a c file which described a binary file his program created.

it contained no comments except somewhere in the writing of the real data

SwapArray(..); // Big endian ???
write();

I asked about the implementation of the SwapArray and he told me I didn't need it, it's just to make sure it works on linux machines.

After experimenting I found out that he used little endian every where (which is like normal) but only the real data was written in big endian. Normally you could see it in a hex editor, but the data was stored in floating point, so it's not that easy to notice the mixed endian.

Answer 94

Top of the Pops surely has to be

//  This code should never be called

Answer 95

My favorite from when I worked on a legacy communications application.

// Magic happens here...

Answer 96

Not quite fitting to the question, but I hate when I see:

try
{
  someSeeminglyTrivialMethod();
}
catch (Exception e)
{
  //Ignore. Should never happen.
}

Whenever I see that during a code review, I tell them to replace the catch with:

catch (Exception e)
{
  System.exit(0);
}

Answer 97

Came across this one today:

/// <summary>
/// The Page_Load runs when the page loads
/// </summary>
private void Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) {}

Answer 98

Another one I remember:

//TODO: This needs to be reworked.  THIS CRAP NEEDS TO STOP!!!

Answer 99

{
    Long complicated code logic  //Added this
}

Answer 100

I thought this was about the worst comment on a SO post, and was disappointed to find otherwise.

Answer 101

Commented code is the least useful comment :)