For ages I’ve wanted to be able to put a comment of some kind in my code that I could get to come up during a build.  “Hey, you haven’t finished this” or “This is an assumption we need to run by the suits” or “you dork, how could you even think to do it this way” or similar – notes to myself and others that there is work left to be done here.

Well, after trying unsuccessfully to look towards subclassing or hacking the Obsolete attribute the answer was handed to me:

1. I build comments in the form // TODO: or // ASSUME: or // BROKEN: or similar, I choose the View menu, and choose Task List.  Ok, granted, that’s been there since the beginning of time, but who put that there and why didn’t they tell me?  Holy cow, that’s cool.  I can even configure it with my own set of commentaries like // DORK_MOVE: or // INSECURE: or // WHAT_WERE_YOU_THINKING:

2. There’s a pre-processor directive called # warning.  Put what ever message you want after, and it shows up in the normal error list.

With these two tools now in the arsenal, I can capture my thoughts in the place most relevant to the task at hand – in the code.  And I can be reminded of them in the place most relevant to the task at hand – the next tab over from the build output window.  Very nice.

Rob