Recently, I wrote about why I think every TODO in your source code needs a ticket (LINK).
Now that a few weeks have passed, I realize that I did not give the full picture in that article. Even if you have a TODO ticket, it does not automatically mean that it will be helpful. Here is why.
Everyone is aware that code with comments is a bad thing. It will inevitably decay, and future developers will be wondering if there is any need for it at all.
Every developer is aware of this. So they often remind themselves to follow up the commented out code with a TODO comment, to see that something needs to be done. Many IDEs support this idea and can show you all TODO comments in your current project.
However, I think using TODO comments to remind yourself of work that needs to be done is a very bad idea. Here is why.
An algorithm is a description of a process that operates on a given input to produce a desired output. This definition is both very general and very similar to the description of what a computer does. The difference is that an algorithm is just a description of a process. It does not necessarily have to run on a computer. But algorithms are also sequences, and thus they are very well suited to be executed by a computer program.