Beyond the Basic Stuff with Python

11 Comments, Docstrings, and Type Hints

The comments and documentation in your source code can be just as important as the code. The reason is that software is never finished; you’ll always need to make changes, whether you’re adding new features or fixing bugs. But you can’t change code unless you understand it, so it’s important that you keep it in a readable state. As computer scientists Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, and Julie Sussman once wrote, “Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.”

Comments, docstrings, and type hints help you maintain your code’s legibility. Comments are ...