Comments smell

This smell does not say that you shouldn't use comments. However, it does say that developers should be wary of code that is heavily commented. If you need to add a lot of comments to your code to explain it, this indicates that the code is too complicated and should be simplified.

In Martin Fowler 1999, Fowler says "When you feel the need to write a comment, first try to refactor the code so that any comment becomes superfluous". This often means using Extract Method and Introduce Assertion.

See also

• Code smells