comment

Noun · Verb

Synonyms: remark input commentary gossip scuttlebutt notice point out gloss annotate

WordNet 3.0

Noun (3)

a statement that expresses a personal opinion or belief or adds information“from time to time she contributed a personal comment on his account”Synonyms: remark input
a written explanation or criticism or illustration that is added to a book or other textual material“he wrote an extended comment on the proposal”Synonyms: commentary
a report (often malicious) about the behavior of other people“the divorce caused much gossip”Synonyms: gossip scuttlebutt

Verb (3)

make or write a comment on“he commented the paper of his colleague”Synonyms: notice remark point out
explain or interpret something
provide interlinear explanations for words or phrases“He annotated on what his teacher had written”Synonyms: gloss annotate

Webster's Dictionary (GCIDE)

Comment \Com"ment\, v. t. To comment on. [Archaic.] --Fuller. [1913 Webster]

Comment \Com"ment\, n. [Cf. OF. comment.]

1.A remark, observation, or criticism; gossip; discourse; talk. [1913 Webster]

Their lavish comment when her name was named.— Tennyson.[1913 Webster]

2.A note or observation intended to explain, illustrate, or criticise the meaning of a writing, book, etc.; explanation; annotation; exposition. [1913 Webster]

All the volumes of philosophy, With all their comments.— Prior.[1913 Webster]

Comment \Com"ment\ (?; 277), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Commented; p. pr. & vb. n. Commenting.] [F. commenter, L. commentari to meditate upon, explain, v. intens. of comminisci, commentus, to reflect upon, invent; com- + the root of meminisse to remember, mens mind. See Mind.] To make remarks, observations, or criticism; especially, to write notes on the works of an author, with a view to illustrate his meaning, or to explain particular passages; to write annotations; -- often followed by on or upon. [1913 Webster]

A physician to comment on your malady. --Shak. [1913 Webster]

Critics . . . proceed to comment on him. --Dryden. [1913 Webster]

I must translate and comment. --Pope. [1913 Webster]

Free On-line Dictionary of Computing

comment

<programming> (Or "remark") Explanatory text embedded in program source (or less often data) intended to help human readers understand it.

Code completely without comments is often hard to read, but code with too many comments is also bad, especially if the comments are not kept up-to-date with changes to the code. Too much commenting may mean that the code is over-complicated. A good rule is to comment everything that needs it but write code that doesn't need much of it. Comments that explain __why__ something is done and how the code relates to its environment are useful.

A particularly irksome form of over-commenting explains exactly what each statement does, even when it is obvious to any reasonably competant programmer, e.g.

/* Open the input file */ infd = open(input_file, O_RDONLY);

(2007-02-19)