diff --git a/dvc/stage.py b/dvc/stage.py
index 32e8204bf..48820cd86 100644
--- a/dvc/stage.py
+++ b/dvc/stage.py
@@ -671,10 +671,16 @@ class Stage(object):
         )
         state = self.dumpd()
 
-        # If we have stage file we apply diffs instead of overwriting it
-        # to preserve comments, string formatting and meta key.
+        # When we load a stage we parse yaml with a fast parser, which strips
+        # off all the comments and formatting. To retain those on update we do
+        # a trick here:
+        # - reparse the same yaml text with a slow but smart ruamel yaml parser
+        # - apply changes to a returned structure
+        # - serialize it
         if self._stage_text is not None:
             saved_state = parse_stage_for_update(self._stage_text, fname)
+            # Stage doesn't work with meta in any way, so .dumpd() doesn't
+            # have it. We simply copy it over.
             if "meta" in saved_state:
                 state["meta"] = saved_state["meta"]
             apply_diff(state, saved_state)
diff --git a/dvc/utils/stage.py b/dvc/utils/stage.py
index 2d3f31618..c3a4b0e66 100644
--- a/dvc/utils/stage.py
+++ b/dvc/utils/stage.py
@@ -24,6 +24,14 @@ def parse_stage(text, path):
 
 
 def parse_stage_for_update(text, path):
+    """Parses text into Python structure.
+
+    Unlike `parse_stage()` this returns ordereddicts, values have special
+    attributes to store comments and line breaks. This allows us to preserve
+    all of those upon dump.
+
+    This one is, however, several times slower than simple `parse_stage()`.
+    """
     try:
         yaml = YAML()
         return yaml.load(text) or {}