Yeah I definitely agree with this. If I'm incrementing x in such a way that it's pretty clear what the meaning is (e.g. it's actually called like cur_page or something and I'm iterating over paginated data), then comments don't add a lot of value. Especially if they're not actually kept up to date with code changes.

On the other hand, comments like, "Hey don't change this because if you do, it'll break things in subtle and hard to test way because x," are definitely useful.

but pageCountDisplayed = pageCount + 1 is more useful still.

In that specific case, potentially - bare in mind it's imaginary code you're refactoring. There will be occasions when "ugly" code is required. The point of my post, which I suspect you missed, is that comments will generally be more useful if they describe the purpose of that code (which is harder to deduce) rather than what that code does (which often can be easily deduced just be reading the code).

The point of my post is that code will be more useful if it describes the purpose of that code. Sure, for the rest of the time there's comments.

Yes, I got that. As I said:

> In that specific case, potentially - bare in mind it's imaginary code you're refactoring. There will be occasions when "ugly" code is required.

ie, I don't disagree with your point however it's not always possible to refactor code for readability. Plus you're still missing the point that writing better comments can give you additional information ("why does it do it") that you might not gleam even from even well written code ("what does it do").