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Re: Wouldn't it be nice if Matlab supported C-style comments?
Posted:
Mar 10, 2013 4:31 PM
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On Monday, March 11, 2013 8:02:53 AM UTC+13, Paul wrote:
> On Mar 10, 1:27 pm, dpb <n...@non.net> wrote:
>
> >On 3/10/2013 12:04 PM, Paul wrote:
>
> >> C-style comments are great! You don't have to comment everything
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> >> to the right of the comment character. You can comment out a
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> >> snippet of code in the middle of a line, and keep the rest of the
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> >> code to the right of it.
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> >
>
> > OTOH, you have to close the opening comment character or it keeps on
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> > going..."there is no free lunch"
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>
>
> There only no free lunch if you choose one commenting style or the
>
> other. C++ allows both.
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>
>
> >> I (and I suspect others) spread complex statements and expressions
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> >> over several lines, using deeper levels of indentation as cognitive
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> >> cues to show which parts of the code bind together more tightly due
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> >> to higher precedence. You can't comment out a snippet of code in
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> >> middle of those lines. If you want to experimentally try a number
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> >> of variations of the code, you have to duplicate the whole chunk of
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> >> code
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> >
>
> > Well, no, you only need duplicate the line which contains the
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> > snippet you're trying to experiment is at least one alternative.
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>
>
> If they are different statements, yes, but I'm talk specifically about
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> spreading a complex statement or expression over several physical
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> lines so that you can use the indentation levels. For example, if
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> you're experimenting with different forms of a symbolic mathematical
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> statement, the form of the right hand side might change a lot, so you
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> want to keep the corresponding matlab expression in a form that is
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> easily manipulated and easy to detect manual errors. You need the
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> cognitive assistance of indentation levels:
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>
>
> function resid = myfunc(llt,u)
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> resid = ...
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> log( ...
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> 1 - ...
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> (
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> 1 - exp(-exp(llt)) ...
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> ) ...
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> ./ exp(llt) ...
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> ) ...
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> - log(u)
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> ;
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> end % function
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>
>
> If you use Matlab's comment character to try commenting the one line:
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>
>
> % ./ exp(llt) ...
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>
>
> you get an error message on that line. It would be nice to be able to
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> close the comment. Using C-style commenting, it might look like:
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>
>
> /* ./ exp(llt) ... */
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>
>
> Like I said, replicating the whole chunk of code just to be able to
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> hack one line (while still retaining the original) creates a whole
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> valley of experimental code, disrupting the continuity in reading the
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> rest of the code.
I'm intrigued that you think your code is more readable than this:
resid = log(1 - (1 - exp(-exp(llt))) - log(u);
because I think your code is ugly and not intuitive. I had to write it on one line to follow it.
With the one-line version commenting is easy:
% resid = log(1 - (1 - exp(exp(llt))) - log(u);
It just goes to show: different horses for different courses.
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