Comments and names

I've read an opinion that if the names of the methods are self-explanatory, the comments describing these methods are not needed.

Well, sometimes it's so, but in general I strongly disagree with this idea. The names and comments have differnt purposes. The point of the name is to give the method a designation that is difficult to confuse with the other methods. The point of the comment is to explain the meaning of a method. Mixing them doesn't do well.

The attempts to make the names more self-explanatory back-fire in two ways: the code becomes longer, and the names become less distinct. And the worst part, it still doesn't explain enough, you can't understand such an uncommented method until you read its implementation. A good comment must explain the various considerations that went into the development of the method, its pre-conditions and post-conditions, and the exact meaning of parameters. There is simply no way to fit it into a name.

In a way, a method name is similar to an acronym in the texts. Or, well, not necessarily an acronym but some  short meaningful name. The first time you use this acronym or word, you explain what it means. When you define a method, you define what it means in the comment, and give it a short name. Then, as you use the word in the rest of the text, you use the method name in the program. And if the reader forgets what it means, he can always look up the explanation. If you used the full multi-word definition throughout your text, it would grow completely unreadable.