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Code comments and the lessons I am learning

As a programmer I am always expected to comment my codes. Obviously this makes my code easier to understand for others. Good comments are also to help me read my code in the future.

*** Now for todays lesson.

My best friend Stephen Nickerson was doing a code review for me and had this to share with me.
When you first start writing a new class it is a good practice to write a brief paragraph at the top of this class. Of course this is common sense. Normally I would eventually write a paragraph describing what the class does.

Now here is the gold nugget. He taught me that the very first thing you should write in this paragraph should be "What is my goal in writing this class."

If you get one thing from this, get this!

Start every Class with a small paragraph stating "My goal when writing this class is ..."

Sounds simple does it not? Well it is. The reality is that the goal that you have in mind for this class is way more important than the details about how you did it. It works like a mission statement for a business. I have found, now when I type the words . " My goal for this class is to ..." I establish my mission. That's right. Things become amazingly clearer.

It is like active negotiation with myself. Instead of getting caught up in the details I agree up front that this is my goal. Now everything must point toward that goal.

I have caught myself many times when power programming having to go back to methods I wrote, to comment them. While writing this short paragraph describing the goal of the method I formulated a better way to accomplish the goal.

Last but not least always add your name and the date to the end of your class opening comments.

A few thoughts here. Adding your name and the date does a couple of things. First it establishes hey I wrote this. This is my brain child. Next it allows people to know who to ask for advise in the future when working on similar tasks or modifying this code. It also allows you to go back and review your work years from now and to see where you were and how far you have come.

Last thought on this. Having your name in the code is like "Coca Cola" being printed on you soda can. That is right. You can build brand recognition. You never know who may someday be reading that code and saying man i wish we had that program Mr. XYZ here with us. He obviously figured this stuff out before. It could be worth our time to find him and offer him a contract to help us.

Just my thoughts. Be bold enough to carve a new trail. Be accountable to your actions and be willing to accept the pat on the back or the kick in the butt. Eventually you will learn how to get more pats on the back.

DIR-655 Router and Vonage no incoming calls.

Sharing the wealth of technical topics through blogging by David Sullivan.


DIR-655 Router and Vonage. Outgoing calls work fine but my incoming calls don't work.

If you have just reset or installed a DIR-655 and your vonage phone stops working I have your reason.

this router has a setting for enable "SIP" this needs to be disabled. look around and find the "SIP" and disable it.

Note. this is not a typo. It is "SIP". There is also an SPI this is not the one.

Disable "SIP" and all will start working.

Good Luck.