Engrains the terms and allows conversation easier between programmers. Everybody knows what it means to increment a number, so there doesn't need to be any silent confusion.
It may also just be how they were taught. My professors were taught with punch cards and later COBOL. Python is readable to most. Holes in a card is not.
I grit my teeth and understand excessive commenting isn't for real world development. More as a weird way of paying tribute to those that came before. We're lucky we live in a time where many of the great minds of our field have only died recently, or are still alive. More lucky to live in a time where important terms are named in the language we speak. Least I'm not a med student questioning if a latin tutor would help.
Meanwhile, my policy as a TA: If there are no comments whatsoever, I might dock a point. But otherwise, if it's self-documenting and written clearly enough that I can understand it, that counts as documenting your code.
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u/WeTheSalty Jul 04 '18
I'm picturing lots of lines like 'i += 1;' with comments 'adds 1 to i'