 and it is often difficult to
look at a piece of code and figure out what it is doing, or why.<br />
<br />
For this reason, it is a good idea to add notes to your programs to explain
in natural language what the program is doing. These notes are called
<b>comments</b>, and they start with the <code>#</code> symbol:
</font><pre><font size="4" color="blue">
# compute the percentage of the hour that has elapsed
percentage = (minute * 100) / 60
</font></pre><font color="black">In this case, the comment appears