Welcome to Network Computing's unabridged, annotated, and somewhat illustrated collection of unusual source code comments as submitted by our readers.

/* If you get here the program missed something*/

/* Abandon hope, all ye who enter here ...... */

You can tune a file system, but you can't tune a fish. UNIX.

# Magic Starts here

"you cannot get here from 
there". 

/*no comment on this!*/

"THE DARK AND SEEDY WORLD OF VISUAL FIDELITY"

/* Optimize THIS, code-boy! */

'Not sure why, but code bombs without this section

/* Load de boofers */

........................................

This code was hard to write, it should be hard to understand also.

"We don't do that under Bozo's big top"

//** This should never execute **//

// This comment has been left blank intentionally

"Halt: Shut her down Scotty, she's sucking mud again"

' this part is not elegant, but it does the job

<!-- lost table close?-->

<!--------awful code to use 0X months-------->

<!-----------really awful 0x month code----------->

'newID is misleading. It's the same id, I just needed a new name.

'thought about inserting a pull from the DB here for 
values not filled out. Decided not in development time scope.

"Much magic happens here." 

/* this code is here because the printer is stoopid */

/* You aren't suppose to be here !! */

/* yeah yeah yeah.. I know.. It's a hack
but it works.. */

90-90 Rule: The first 90% of the code accounts for the first 90% of development time. The remaining 10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of development time.

'***** this is a time bomb in the making...

<!~-- Ya, Like this will work! --->

/* This part doesn't really do anything yet. Its just here in case we need it. */

/* I'm not going to explain this, figure it out yourself */

//MFC nonsense
.
.
.
//end nonsense

/* Purpose: Only Lamont Cranston knows */.

Lamont Cranston was The Shadow.

/* And now the magic happens */
(Globs of incomprehensible code here.)
/* End of happening magic */

/* not sure why this works, do not remove or system will core dump */

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." 

Comment in source code that was inherited and not commented originally.
/* To Do: figure out the next block of code */
/* I am not sure what this does */

/* Emergency Turkey Day Fix */

/* Emergency fix to fix emergency Turkey Day Fix */

"This instance of OPParcelObj is owned by an 
instance of OPParcelArray that is associated with an 
instance of OPCustThread which owns an instance of 
the parcel processor which is the processor needed to 
process this parcel."

# this is the second of three impossible errors

Searching through the code, we wound the "first of three" and the "third of three" impossible error comments.

/* Quiet!!! This is orthogonal code */

/*Well you made it this far-Good luck-I couldn't get it to work either*/

/* Ryan don't comment code! */

/* And, then, a miracle happens! */

/* Assumed impossible condition */
fprintf(stderr,"Dying in disgrace\n")

/* Look what the nitwit beancounters invented this month! */

/* I didn't write this code */

from XEmacs frame-x.c
x_smash_bastardly_shell_position (Widget shell)
{
/* Naturally those bastards who wrote Xt couldn't be bothered
to learn about race conditions and such. We can't trust
the X and Y values to have any semblance of correctness,
so we smash the right values in place. */

//Do appropriate logic

/* Not sure what this does but it works */
/* A. Amin - 11/10/01 

/* Coppyrhite 1981 by B. Gates */
/* This program is protected by all copyright laws in the */
/* world, so do not dare to steal any piece of it. */
#include sys_crash.h
#include slow_io.h
#include memory_waste.h
char make_prog_look_big[1600000];
main()
if (detect_cache())
disable_cache();
if (fast_cpu())
set_wait_states( 1/cpu_speed );
set_mouse(speed, very_slow);
set_mouse(action, jumpy);
set_mouse(reaction, sometimes);
printf("Welcome to Windoze 3.999 
(we might get it right or just call it Chicago)\n");
if (system_ok())
crash(to_dos_prompt);
else
system_memory = open("a:\swp0001.swp", O_CREATE);
while(1)
{
sleep(5);
get_user_input();
sleep(5);
act_on_user_input();
sleep(5);
if (rand() < 0.9)
crash(complete_system);
}
return(unrecoverable_system);

"You're not supposed to be here."

'Insert meaningful comments here

;Comment Begin
;I don't know what this is supposed to do, but
;it looks like it is important!
;What ever you do, don't change it!
;Comment End

/* Oh, this is nasty. Hope it works. 
Pity the programmer who has to find out why it doesn't. */

/* Break out the Ragu. The following is spaghetti code. */