Re: Refactoring and commenting

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Sun, 10 Dec 2006, Robert Ancell wrote:

> Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2006 16:04:41 +1100
> From: Robert Ancell <bob27 users sourceforge net>
> To: games-list gnome org
> Subject: Refactoring and commenting
>
> Hi all,
>
> I recently refactored part of Gnomine as trying to modify it for Bug
> #307245 was very difficult. Part of the refactoring included adding
> comments on some confusing sections (very little of the codebase seems
> to be commented). As I now know the gnotravex codebase quite well I
> plan to do some fairly heavy refactoring on it soon.(it is a 2000 line
> single file that is crying out to be split into two or three parts).
>
> What is the Gnome Games community position on refactoring/commenting?
> I am particularly interested as I chose gnotravex as the first game to
> make changes to due to it's relative simplicity. However the code is
> quite complex and would potentially turn off future coders and
> patchers. I think lowering the bar to new developers is a timeworthy
> task.

The lack of reponse so far probably shows no one else sees any problem
with well written, clearly commented code either, how could they?

I expect there are some minor caveats about sticking with the existing
coding style and indentation but maybe that probably doesn't even need to
be mentioned.  Running your compiler in a stricter mode and with more
warnings might show other ways to "clean" the code.


-- 
Alan