Question

Often, raw code does not convey all the information you want a program to convey to human readers, or it conveys it in such a cryptic way that people might not understand it. At other times, you might just feel poetic or want to include some thoughts as part of your program. This is what comments are for.

A comment is a piece of text that is part of a program but is completely ignored by the computer. JavaScript has two ways of writing comments. To write a single-line comment, you can use two slash characters ( // ) and then the comment text after it.

var accountBalance = calculateBalance(account);
// It's a green hollow where a river sings
accountBalance.adjust();
// Madly catching white tatters in the grass.
var report = new Report();
// Where the sun on the proud mountain rings:
addToReport(accountBalance, report);
// It's a little valley, foaming like light in a glass.

A // comment goes only to the end of the line. A section of text between /* and */ will be ignored, regardless of whether it contains line breaks. This is often useful for adding blocks of information about a file or a chunk of program.

/*
 I first found this number scrawled on the back of one of
 my notebooks a few years ago. Since then, it has often
 dropped by, showing up in phone numbers and the serial
 numbers of products that I've bought. It obviously likes
 me, so I've decided to keep it.
*/
var myNumber = 11213;

This is a book about getting computers to do what you want them to do. Computers are about as common as screwdrivers today, but they contain a lot more hidden complexity and thus are harder to operate and understand. To many, they remain alien, slightly threatening things.