Comments

Whenever we develop programs, the correctness of the program (whether it produces the "right" results) is a very important concern, but it is not the only concern. Other important factors include efficiency and programming style. Efficiency refers to whether the program runs in a reasonable amount of time and uses a reasonable amount of memory. Programming style includes such things as clear and understandable algorithms, good organization, descriptive variable names, effective use of whitespace, and appropriate documentation (comments). Comments are an important and effective way of making our programs easier to read and understand (as well as debug). Comments are meant for humans to read; in fact, Matlab ignores all comments when it executes code. Comments in Matlab begin with a percent sign ( % ) and continue to the end of the line:

     % this is a comment
     METERS_PER_INCH = 0.0254    % conversion constant for inches to meters
     heightInInches = 71         % this is also a comment

     % convert height to meters
     heightInMeters = heightInInches * METERS_PER_INCH 

Use comments liberally in your code to help you, your collaborator and your instructor understand what your code does and how it does it.