Exactly that! Everyone can See "what" is happening, the code is right there. But the code usually doesn't tell you "why" that is happening - good comments help understand the authors intent and give context, so you don't have to guess.

Good comments should explain the things that are not obvious.

Good comments more than once prevented me from accidentially undoing a fix.

[–] nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yup my comments are generally along the lines of:

I could have done this X way, but it ran slower
I was running out of time so this it’s mostly copied from (stack overflow url)
refactor when time allows

This is a side effect of doing lots of tiny websites , microcontroller code and mini web apps for under budgeted marketing projects with constantly changing designs and requirements that don’t need to last too long.