On Tue, 8 Apr 2003, Jeff Henrikson wrote:

> Though I favor the addition of the single line comments, most of the 
> comments thus far seem to be very subjective.  I find the "80+ percent 
> of comments in the existing sources are single line comment" fairly 
> weighty.  I also find the following unmentioned idea significant: 
> single line comments save large number of keystrokes when substituting 
> different chunks of code during testing.  Also adding printfs.  And any 
> comment-compile-uncomment-compile situation.  It's a fairly specific 
> task, but also a pronounced difference when it happens.

Actually, I was about to use this as an argument for why multi-line 
comments are better.  I do this a lot- comment out huge swaths of code, 
and then uncomment it one function at a time.  I do this by moving the (* 
around.  Very fast.  Very simple.  Simply dd on the line with the (*, page 
or arrow down to the next break point, and do a p.  

> 
> I find a lot of the "no-single-comment" arguments to be sounding 
> remarkably reductionist in the way the "we don't need GUI" arguments 
> that certain die hard UNIX users purvey.  

Oh don't be silly.  Of course we need a GUI- so we can multiple xterms on 
the same screen!  :-)

A more legitimate analogy would be not needing both a mouse and a 
trackball.  You know- some people prefer mice, and others track balls, and 
sometimes it's more easy to use one than the other, so we really need 
both.

Brian

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