[Devel] comment formatting - unneeded slashs and asterisks considered harmful

[Graham Asher]

I note with surprise that some comments in code I checked in have been
reformatted. Here is an example. In ttgload.c. My original comment is this:

        /*
        Set 'offset' to the start of the glyph program relative to the start of 
the
'glyf' table,
        and 'count' to the length of the glyph program in bytes.

        If we are loading glyph data via the incremental interface, set the 
loader
stream to a memory
        stream reading the data returned by the interface.
        */

It has been changed to the following:

    /* Set `offset' to the start of the glyph program relative to the  */
    /* start of the 'glyf' table, and `count' to the length of the     */
    /* glyph program in bytes.                                         */
    /*                                                                 */
    /* If we are loading glyph data via the incremental interface, set */
    /* the loader stream to a memory stream reading the data returned  */
    /* by the interface.                                               */

If comments are to be restricted to a certain number of characters per line,
that is good (how many?), but what is NOT good is the unnecessary and
obfuscatory '/*' and '*/ around every line. In my opinion, it is a very
great step backwards to add these. It makes it very hard to edit the comment
and thus keep it correct if there are changes to the code. I would like to
make a strong argument for getting rid of the '/*' and '*/'. The comment
should thus be:

/*
Set 'offset' to the start of the glyph program relative to the
start of the 'glyf' table, and 'count' to the length of the
glyph program in bytes.

If we are loading glyph data via the incremental interface, set
the loader stream to a memory stream reading the data returned
by the interface.
*/

Surely the FreeType formatting rules can be relaxed to allow this sort of
comment? Can Werner or David explain exactly how it would harm the FreeType
project?

Graham Asher