Simple Getter/Setter comments

Question

What convention do you use to comment getters and setters? This is something I've wondered for quite some time, for instance:

/**
 * (1a) what do you put here?
 * @param salary (1b) what do you put here?
 */
public void setSalary(float salary);

/*
 * (2a) what do you put here?
 * @return (2b)
 */
public float getSalary();

I always find I'm pretty much writing the exact same thing for 1a/b and 2a/b, something like 1a) Sets the salary of the employee, 1b) the salary of the employee. It just seems so redundant. Now I could see for something more complex you might write more in the (a) parts, to give context, but for a majority of the getters/setters out there the wording is almost exactly the same.

I'm just curious if, for the simple getters/setters its ok to only fill in either the (a) part OR the (b) part.

What do you think?

Answer 1

Absolutely pointless - you're better off without this kind of crap cluttering your code:

/**
 * Sets the foo.
 * 
 * @param foo the foo to set
 */
public void setFoo(float foo);

Very useful, if warranted:

/**
 * Foo is the adjustment factor used in the Bar-calculation. It has a default
 * value depending on the Baz type, but can be adjusted on a per-case base.
 * 
 * @param foo must be greater than 0 and not greater than MAX_FOO.
 */
public void setFoo(float foo);

Especially the explanation of what the property actually means can be crucial in domain models. Whenever I see a bean full of properties with obscure names that only investment bankers, biochemists or quantum physicists understand, and the comments explain that the setGobbledygook() method "sets the gobbledygook.", I want to strangle someone.