I just recently started documenting my code as it helped me. Though I feel like my documentations are a bit too verbose and probably unneeded on obvious parts of my code.

So I started commenting above a few lines of code and explain it in a short sentence what I do or why I do that, then leave a space under it for the next line so it is easier to read.

What do you think about this?

Edit: real code example from one of my projects:

async def discord_login_callback(request: HttpRequest) -> HttpResponseRedirect:
    async def exchange_oauth2_code(code: str) -> str | None:
        data = {
            'grant_type': 'authorization_code',
            'code': code,
            'redirect_uri': OAUTH2_REDIRECT_URI
        }
        headers = {
            'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
        }
        async with httpx.AsyncClient() as client:
            # get user's access and refresh tokens
            response = await client.post(f"{BASE_API_URI}/oauth2/token", data=data, headers=headers, auth=(CLIENT_ID, CLIENT_SECRET))
            if response.status_code == 200:
                access_token, refresh_token = response.json()["access_token"], response.json()["refresh_token"]

                # get user data via discord's api
                user_data = await client.get(f"{BASE_API_URI}/users/@me", headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {access_token}"})
                user_data = user_data.json()
                user_data.update({"access_token": access_token, "refresh_token": refresh_token}) # add tokens to user_data

                return user_data, None
            else:
                # if any error occurs, return error context
                context = generate_error_dictionary("An error occurred while trying to get user's access and refresh tokens", f"Response Status: {response.status_code}\nError: {response.content}")
                return None, context

    code = request.GET.get("code")
    user, context = await exchange_oauth2_code(code)

    # login if user's discord user data is returned
    if user:
        discord_user = await aauthenticate(request, user=user)
        await alogin(request, user=discord_user, backend="index.auth.DiscordAuthenticationBackend")
        return redirect("index")
    else:
        return render(request, "index/errorPage.html", context)
  • silas@programming.dev
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    11 months ago

    I know there are documentation generators (like JSDoc in JavaScript) where you can literally write documentation in your code and have a documentation site auto-generated at each deployment. There’s definitely mixed views on this though

    • CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      To my knowledge that just formats existing comments. With LLMs you could probably do 95% of the actual commenting.

      • Superb@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        11 months ago

        Useful comments should provide context or information not already available in the code. There is no LLM that can generate good comments from the source alone

        • silas@programming.dev
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          11 months ago

          Codium does surprisingly well at generating JSDoc, and it processes your code within the context of your entire codebase. Still not quite there yet, but you might be surprised