> I also see this from people who are using VCS, but that's mostly because they are overcautious and/or have not really gotten "warm" with the VCS.
Yeah, that could probably describe me. Reverting a particular piece of code back from VCS seems like more work (the kind of "I need to think about it" work), which is enough for me to leave bits of code commented when working on some particular task. I never leave them there for long - usually only until I can get the new piece of code working and tested. The commented code serves as a reference/fallback.
This is what I do as well. I use VCS but it's more work. If I'm just refactoring a piece of code I comment it out while I work on the new stuff and test it. It also has the added benefit that I can reference the old code easily if needs be. Occasionally I will commit with the commented code still in place (until I'm 100% confident with my new code) but I usually follow that up quite quickly with a commit removing it.
Yeah, that could probably describe me. Reverting a particular piece of code back from VCS seems like more work (the kind of "I need to think about it" work), which is enough for me to leave bits of code commented when working on some particular task. I never leave them there for long - usually only until I can get the new piece of code working and tested. The commented code serves as a reference/fallback.