We had to insert a couple of lines of code something like —
x=y
y=x
With a comment
C Do not remove or change these lines.
This was necessary to cure a compiler problem. Sometimes, the compiler, when it grabbed a section of code, would get an error. This changed the section of code’s boundary.
My favorite computer quote:
“Problems that go away by themselves come back by themselves.”
Back in the day as a programmer, I ran into a weird compiler error. Had it narrowed down to a few lines of code, so I added a print line to show me the value of a variable. Compile worked, and the code ran just fine. Commented out the line, the the code ran just fine. Removed the comment, and the code stopped working.
Had to leave the comment in the code for the program to work.