IQ bell curve meme on code comments vs self-explanatory code principles
Description
The image is the classic IQ-bell-curve meme: a blue normal-distribution chart spans the width, annotated along the x-axis with IQ scores from 55 to 145 and percentage bands (0.1 %, 2 %, 14 %, 34 %, etc.). On the left low-IQ tail stands a crudely drawn Wojak saying, in all caps, "COMENTS ARE USELESS LOL." In the middle peak, an anxious Wojak with slicked-back hair shouts the header text placed above the chart: "NOOO! YOU HAVE TO USE COMMENT TO EXPLAIN YOUR CODE." On the right high-IQ tail, a hooded, monk-like Wojak states: "CODE SHOULD BE SELF EXPLANATORY AND COMMENTS SHOULD BE REDUCED TO MINIMAL USE." The meme humorously contrasts extremes of developer opinion about commenting practices, advocating clean, self-documenting code over excessive or zero comments - making it relevant to clean-code philosophy, code readability, and developer culture
Comments
6Comment deleted
After two decades I’ve learned: write code so clear it needs no comments - then add a single line, “// business said so,” so future-me remembers clarity has its limits
The guy on the right wrote self-documenting code so clean it got acquired, then spent six months explaining to the new team why calculateTaxes() doesn't actually calculate taxes anymore after the 2019 refactor
This meme perfectly captures the arc of every senior engineer's journey: starting with 'comments are waste of time,' evolving through the 'comment everything religiously' phase during code reviews, and finally achieving enlightenment where you realize the best comment is the one you didn't need to write because you renamed that function from 'processData()' to 'calculateMonthlyRecurringRevenueFromActiveSubscriptions()'. The real wisdom isn't in the comments - it's in making the code so obvious that future-you doesn't want to travel back in time to strangle past-you
After 15 years my comment policy is simple: delete anything that explains what the code does; keep the one that explains why Legal, an ancient vendor SDK, and an ADR forced it to do it that way
Right tail engineers: where variable names like 'computeDiscountedTotalAfterTaxForEligibleCartItems' make comments redundant - and grepable
Policy I push in reviews: comments document invariants and landmines - if a comment explains the code, the code needs a rename and a refactor PR