Well, I guess we have a clash of worlds here. As I said, I'm not a programmer, I'm mainly writing scripts when I need them, and there may be weeks or even months between two scripts. Therefore, I usually have a general idea of what to do to achieve what I need -- but then there is all the cumbersome stuff I have forgotten in the meantime: What is the correct syntax? What does this option or that do? Is this regex correct when using grep, or was that the form that works with sed? Consequently, I heavily document my code -- even to an extent that a pro might consider hilarious. But it really helps me understand what I once did if there ever is the need to change something. It's just the same here: I'm still a factorio beginner playing with combinators and struggling to get into the right set of mind to get things done with them. Take a look at this station:Tekky wrote: βTue Oct 23, 2018 6:16 pmExactly. Comments are mainly used on entire functions of code or at least blocks of code, not so much on individual operations. This is equivalent to placing one signpost for a group of combinators, instead of attaching a comment to a single combinator.Pi-C wrote: βTue Oct 23, 2018 4:39 pmA typical, well-documented script (I'm not a programmer, really, but I have cobbled together a couple of shell scripts in the past) should state the purpose it should be used for right at the top, possibly together with a summary of allowed options, copyleft notes etc. Then you typically define a bunch of functions. If it is not already obvious from the function name, you add a comment above or at the start of a function explaining what it is used for. Finally, you add comments to singular blocks of code, or even to single lines, so you will remember why one loop starts at zero or to emphasize that you are using a global instead of a local variable.
As I stated above, in the rare cases when this is required, it would still be possible to have one comment per combinator, by placing one signpost next to each combinator.
It's quite a mess by my book: two different stops, one for loading coal, the other for loading steel and iron. Both unload supplies, but only one station requests them. Too little room to expand the station, therefore I put so much together. Now, there are combinators pointing in every possible direction and cables going haywire. It is possible to follow the signal flow and debug this, but it is hell and I don't want to go through it again. However, I'm afraid that putting a sign next to every combinator would only add to the chaos instead of diminishing it. Therefore I would really appreciate it if I could comment combinators directly.
That is an argument I can accept: signposts can be used with more entities than just combinators. Of course, it wouldn't make sense to try to comment conveyor belts (well, unless they are connected to the circuit network, perhaps -- but that's only a minute fraction of all the belt segments in the factory), it also wouldn't be intuitive to click on a belt segment to look for comments. On the other hand, it's quite natural to look into what a combinator does, and if there are any comments, so much the better.This would also allow signposts to be used as comments for other things, for example as a description on the purpose of conveyor belt setups.
Anyway, it's just an idea and a suggestion! If it really should get implemented, I'll be glad; if it is too much hassle for the developers, I'll have to live with it.