Is it OK to put link to SO questions in a program comments?

Posted by WizardOfOdds on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by WizardOfOdds
Published on 2010-05-17T16:42:59Z Indexed on 2010/05/17 16:50 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 308

Filed under:

comments

|

best-practices

|

stackoverflow

In quite some codebase you can see comments stating things like:

 // Workaround for defect 'xxx', (See bug 1434594 on Sun's bugparade)

So I've got a few questions, but they're all related.

Is it OK to put link to SO questions in a program's comments:

 // We're now mapping from the "sorted-on column" to original indices.
 //
 // There's apparently no easy way to do this in Java, so we're
 // re-inventing a wheel.
 //
 // (see why here, in SO question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/951848)

Do you do it?

And what are the drawbacks in doing so? (see my first comment for a terrible drawback)

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about comments

SQL Developer Data Modeler: On Notes, Comments, and Comments in RDBMS

as seen on Oracle Blogs - Search for 'Oracle Blogs'
Ah the beautiful data model. They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words. And then we have our diagrams, how many words are they worth? Our friends from the Human Relations sample schema So our models describe how the data ‘works’ – whether that be at a logical-business level, or a… >>> More
Comments on Comments

as seen on Geeks with Blogs - Search for 'Geeks with Blogs'
I almost tweeted a reply to Capar Kleijne's question about comments on Twitter, but realized that my opinion exceeded 140 characters. The following is based upon my experience with extremes and approaches that I find useful in code comments. There are a couple extremes that I've seen and reasons… >>> More
Comments in string and strings in comments

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi there, I am trying to count characters in comments included in C code using Python and Regex, but no success. I can erase strings first to get rid of comments in strings, but this will erase string in comments too and result will be bad ofc. Is there any chance to ask by using regex to not match… >>> More
checkins/recent not returning comments or even counts of comments

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
My application has been using the checkins/recent endpoint to show where all the current users friends are currently at and I had included a button the user could press to comment on a checkin. The button used to have the comment count on it until recently. It seems the checkins/recent endpoint no… >>> More
VS for Database Pros (GDR R2) Removes Sproc Comments (2 replies)

as seen on .NET 247 - Search for '.NET 247'
I have been working with my team to implement Data Dude GDR R2 for managing ALL of the databases for our applications. So far I am very pleased by what we can do with the tool with a single exception. I want to have a header with comments as part of every stored procedure so we can track the history… >>> More

Related posts about best-practices

Batch Best Practices and Technical Best Practices Updated

as seen on Oracle Blogs - Search for 'Oracle Blogs'
The Batch Best Practices for Oracle Utilities Application Framework based products (Doc Id: 836362.1) and Technical Best Practices for Oracle Utilities Application Framework Based Products (Doc Id: 560367.1) have been updated with updated and new advice for the various versions of the Oracle… >>> More
Partial template specialization of free functions - best practices

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
As most C++ programmers should know, partial template specialization of free functions is disallowed. For example, the following is illegal C++: template <class T, int N> T mul(const T& x) { return x * N; } template <class T> T mul<T, 0>(const T& x) { return T(0); } //… >>> More
Object Oriented PHP Best Practices

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Say I have a class which represents a person, a variable within that class would be $name. Previously, In my scripts I would create an instance of the object then set the name by just using: $object->name = "x"; However, I was told this was not best practice? That I should have a function set_name()… >>> More
Good place to look for example Database Designs - Best practices

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have been given the task to design a database to store a lot of information for our company. Because the task is rather big and contains multiple modules where users should be able to do stuff, I'm worried about designing a good data model for this. I just don't want to end up with a badly designed… >>> More
Notification Email Best Practices--From Server Setup to Programming

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
All, I'm in the process now of building a SaaS tool that allows network admins to generate notification emails to the members of the end-users of our platform (among many many other things). I'm running into a bit of an "out of my expertise" wall, as I know there are a lot of variables involved… >>> More