The single best code comment ever written

The single best code comment ever written 😱 // At this point, I'd like to take a moment to speak to you about the Adobe PSD // format. PSD is not a good format. PSD is not even a bad format. Calling it // such would be an insult to other bad formats, such as PCX or JPEG. No, PSD // is an abysmal format. Having worked on this code for several weeks now, my // hate for PSD has grown to a raging fire that burns with the fierce passion // of a million suns. // If there are two different ways of doing something, PSD will do both, in // different places. It will then make up three ways of doing something else a // human would think, and do those too. PSD makes inconsistency an art form. Why, for // instance, did it suddenly decide that these particular chunks should be // aligned to four bytes, and that this alignment should *not* be included in // the size? Other chunks, in other places are either unaligned, or aligned with // the alignment included in the size. Here, though, it is not included. Either // one of these three behaviours would be fine. A sane format would pick one. // PSD, of course, uses all three, and more. // Trying to get data out of a PSD file is like trying to find something in the // attic of your grandfather's house who died in a freak freshwater shark // attack on his 58th birthday. That last detail may not be important for the // purposes of this simile, but at this point I am spending a lot of time // imagining amusing fates for the people responsible for this Rube Goldberg of // a file format. // Earlier, I tried to get a hold of the latest specs for the PSD file format. // To do this, I had to apply to them for permission to apply to them to have // them consider sending me this sacred tome. This would have involved faxing // them a copy of some document or other, probably signed in blood. I can only // imagine that they make this process so difficult because they are intensely // ashamed of having created this abomination. I was naturally not gullible // enough to go through with the application, but if I had done so, I would have // printed out every single page of the spec, and set them all on fire. Were it // within my power, I would gather every single copy of those specs, and launch // them on a spaceship directly into the sun. // PSD is not my favourite file format.

На изображении показан огромный программный комментарий, в котором автор яростно и образно ненавидит формат Adobe PSD. Шутка в гиперболизированном описании неудобств формата: его противоречивости, нелогичности и мучительной документации сравниваются с абсурдными катастрофами. Такой мем отправляют как реакцию на плохой формат файла, ужасный технический долг или особенно раздражающую спецификацию. EN: The image shows a huge code comment in which the author furiously and vividly hates the Adobe PSD format. The joke is the exaggerated description of the format’s inconveniences: its inconsistencies, illogic, and painful documentation are compared to absurd disasters. People send this meme as a reaction to a bad file format, terrible technical debt, or an especially frustrating specification.

• @ithueti / 10906 2023-11-17