alt Hacker NewsI don't see how it's optional.
Comments are a kind of freedom in code. You're completely free to use them precisely because (in a plain execution environment) they cannot influence the result of evaluation
If comments /can/ change the result of evaluation then you simply are not (completely) free to use them. (And yes I know that this is a simplification in JS where you can already get the source code of a function with toString... Ugh)
Makes sense. I'm excited for your solution, despite not having seen it. If you can solve that, it would be awesome.