What is the importance of comments in code?

Comments in code serve a critical purpose by providing explanations and clarity to anyone reading the code, whether that's the original author or others who may work on it later. Good comments can describe the overall purpose of complex code, clarify the intent behind specific choices, or provide context about how particular functions work. This makes the code more maintainable, understandable, and easier to navigate.

Importantly, comments are ignored by the compiler or interpreter during the execution of the program, meaning that they have no impact on the functionality or performance of the code. Since they do not affect how the program runs, they become tools for communication rather than for execution.

While there are other functions and rules in programming, such as enforcing syntax and compiling code correctly, those are not the role of comments. Comments are meant purely for documentation and helping programmers work together, which is why they are integral to collaborative software development.