you’re very wrong with this statement: “code can only tell you WHAT, not WHY”.

An aptly named variable, method or class can very well express why it does what it does. Take this piece of code for instance:

public void prepareOrderForShipmentOrder (order) {
order.setStatus(OrderStatus.READY_FOR_TRANSPORT);

notificationManager.sendOrderReadyForShipment(order);
}

Shows exactly what’s going on in terms of the business need. The only comment you could add here would be a redundant repitition of the business process, which is already expressed more clearly in code. If the code said something like order.setStatus(2) and notificationManager.sendNotification11(order), then a comment could clear this up. But in that case the code should be made more clear, not the comment.

Commenting your code is absolutely NOT optional; I simply will not allow uncommented code to be checked-in; is’t sloppy, lazy and shows a general lack of consideration for other coders that will have to work with the code later.

At an ABSOLUTE BARE MINIMUM:
* Every class should have a header describing what it does.
* Every method should have a header describing what it does.
* Every member variable should be described at declaration.

The only time “code over comments” applies is within the actual functional body of a method where the code _should_ be clear enough to explain what is going on. However, code can only tell you WHAT, not WHY. Any time you have a piece of code that is not immediately intuituive it must be commented to explain why you are doing things a certain way.