15: Delete Redundant Comments

When you see a comment that says exactly what the code says, remove it!

The purpose of code is to explain to other programmers what you want the computer to do.

Comments and code present different trade-offs for the writer and the reader. We can explain anything we want in prose, but there's no mechanism to double-check the accuracy of prose as the system changes.

Some Teams take a narrow view of the mandate to communicate with dogmatic rules such as "every routine must be commented". Often this creates comments without benefits. If a comment is completely redundant, delete it.

Tidyings often chain together. Refactoring code to improve readability can make a comment redundant.