> It almost seems that there's a generation of programmers being taught that comments are a waste of time.
That might be true. I had at least one professor who discouraged comments. He said, "I know how to read code." I can understand that in his particular case, he didn't need documentation for higher-level understanding. He taught us the algorithms and data structures being used and he gave us a boiler plate design that we had to conform to. All we had to do was fill in the function bodies and write a main() function.
Unfortunately, it's possible that some students might have adopted that as an overall attitude without recognizing that the context in which it was said invalidated the need for comments for any higher-level understanding. A lot of students looked up to this professor.
That's just a single example. I have no idea how common this is.
That might be true. I had at least one professor who discouraged comments. He said, "I know how to read code." I can understand that in his particular case, he didn't need documentation for higher-level understanding. He taught us the algorithms and data structures being used and he gave us a boiler plate design that we had to conform to. All we had to do was fill in the function bodies and write a main() function.
Unfortunately, it's possible that some students might have adopted that as an overall attitude without recognizing that the context in which it was said invalidated the need for comments for any higher-level understanding. A lot of students looked up to this professor.
That's just a single example. I have no idea how common this is.