I&#39;m reading McConell&#39;s *Code Complete*, and he discusses using boolean variables to document your code. For example, instead of:

    if((elementIndex &lt; 0) || (MAX_ELEMENTS &lt; elementIndex) || 
       (elementIndex == lastElementIndex)){
           ...
    }

He suggests:

    finished = ((elementIndex &lt; 0) || (MAX_ELEMENTS &lt; elementIndex));
    repeatedEntry = (elementIndex == lastElementIndex);
    if(finished || repeatedEntry){
       ...
    }

This strikes me as logical, good practice, and very self-documenting. However, I&#39;m hesitant to start using this technique regularly as I&#39;ve almost never come across it; and perhaps it would be confusing just by virtue of being rare. However, my experience is not very vast yet, so I&#39;m interested in hearing programmers&#39; opinion of this technique, and I&#39;d be curious to know if anyone uses this technique regularly or has seen it often when reading code. Is this a worthwhile convention/style/technique to adopt? Will other programmers understand and appreciate it, or consider it strange?

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Should programmers use boolean variables to "document" their code?