Re: [Bug-gnulib] Re: snprintf

[Paul Eggert]

Simon Josefsson <address@hidden> writes:

> The comments do contain some useful information.

I've observed that in practice the comments are not maintained, and
their information becomes misleading (i.e., worse than useless :-).
That's my biggest beef about them.

> If there was a tool,

Then the comments could be kept accurate.  (But we wouldn't need them.  :-)

As far as "Specification" goes, the convention is always that the
first non-config.h header must specify the API, and this comment is
merely reminding us of the convention.  I don't find that the comment
helps me to remember that.  When I see an existing module, it's
obvious to me why the specifying header is first.  When I write a new
module, I either remember to put the specification header first, or I
don't (usually the former these days :-).  Either way, the
"Specification" comment doesn't help me and is just clutter.

It's just a minor point.  I really don't care much either way about
"Specification".  I care a bit more about the other comments, since
they're often inaccurate and they're not, in my experience, worth the
maintenance aggravation.  But even then I don't care all that much.