Doxygen is not documentation

OriginalGriff

Those aren't devs - those are script kiddies. :sigh:

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CPallini

Indeed.

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Greg Utas

The code is the urtext, and its documentation is a derivative work to help readers understand it. Cluttering and defiling it with tags to the point where it has to be exported by a tool is an abomination. X| :mad:

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RickZeeland

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honey the codewitch

I know it's not ideal, but I enjoy technical writing, and I prefer to give my code the full treatment by way of articles. It is better than not doing, and it's more likely that I skip it if I hate doing it.

Real programmers use butterflies

honey the codewitch

I have to agree with that. I really hate code where every function has a heckin' header on it. Just comment a description. If it takes more than one line to describe it, in most cases, write another function.

Real programmers use butterflies

PIEBALDconsult

Same thing with a tool one of my colleagues was trying to push on us to "document" our SQL Server databases a few years back. Whatever it can create automatically, is not documentation. And what could it possibly do which we can't do better ourselves?

Marc Clifton

Amen. I nix'd using Doxygen for that very reason -- a screenful of tags for a 5 line function. It makes visually scanning the codebase a nightmare. Better to just document stuff in a separate file -- wiki, markdown, HTML, Word doc, whatever.

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jsc42

I, too, like technical writing! It is like having a code review and training others. If you try to think like the reader and ask the questions that he/she/it would ask, it often highlights ambiguities and holes and missing features and redundancies.

den2k88

I don't mind headers, as long as they are sensible - I use spacing comments a lot and a small header works just fine. i.e. something like this is fine for me (about the max size I can tolerate for a header)

/**
* Function: connectionIsValid
* Description: returns TRUE if the address of the client is acceptable
* Arguments:
* connectedClient: pointer to the sockaddr returned by accept()
* structLen: lenght of sockaddr returned by accept()
* Return:
* duo_bool_t TRUE if connection is accepted, FALSE if not.
*/

They are just an embellishment of a comment though, documentation is another thing entirely.

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honey the codewitch

Yeah, I don't care for that stuff, because to me it increases maintenance without (usually) adding much value beyond the description. I tend to lean on long, descriptive parameter names and hard typing everything I need to be as descriptive as possible, even if means using a bool instead of an int like a lot of people do. =)

Real programmers use butterflies

Forogar

It's much better to write the documentation with the aim of saying why you are doing something rather than just what. How many times have you seen something like the ultimate useless comment, "// Loop through the list"? :mad: Doxygen is very clever in it's way but still basically useless.

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honey the codewitch

The main thing I use doxygen style stuff with doc comments for is in C# I can force my compiler to error out if I haven't commented a public method. I don't care about the XML doc file it generates. :laugh:

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jschell

If all you do is write simple methods then of course what you state is true. But often methods fulfill complex needs that are not clear from the code itself. And comments are necessary to explain what need the code is fulfilling. A maintenance programmer should not be required to understand and be familiar with the entire application just so they can make a change in one method. And that is an ideal world. Methods, especially in legacy code, often grow due to convenience and work load rather than because it was optimal. And with multiple requirements being met that way it becomes very difficult for maintenance programmers to make required changes without impacting the application in unexpected ways.

honey the codewitch

Yeah, code rots. At some point it should be rewritten, and too often in the industry it gets punted until long after it's necessary to do it. Fortunately I don't have to deal with that anymore. :laugh: I document my design and architecture down to the code level usually, so the functions are pretty clear, if you read them. But then I don't have to work on teams anymore, so I've shed a lot of the baggage/overhead that comes with that.

Real programmers use butterflies

realJSOP

I've been called out in meetings and *thanked* for writing comments. We have a fairly high turnover rate where I work, and knowing that, I comment pretty much everything I do, not so much as the "what", but more the "why" of code. I also comment as if the person coming in behind me is fairly new at being a programmer. I've actually gotten letters of commendation for my "drive towards more maintainable code". Good comments are worth the effort and the clutter that necessarily comes with them. We don't use Doxygen,

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Gary R Wheeler

Agreed. I have an intense dislike for over-commenting. I'll quote something Dan Saks, one-time Secretary of the ANSI/ISO C++ Standard Committee, said in a C++ class he taught at my employer: "If at all possible, say it in code. Otherwise, say it in a comment." I've followed this advice ever since. Careful naming eliminates most of the "what is this?" sort of comments that a lot of people write. If I'm implementing a specific algorithm or to a particular specification, I'll include that information in a comment. I despise text-mode graphic comments with cutesy graphics or anything of that crap. The only exceptions are I do occasionally use 'dividers' like this:

// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Heading text
// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

to partition logical sections of the code or declarations. We also have a change list tool as part of our automatic build process that constructs a change history correlated by version based upon comments in the source code.

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MadGerbil

Sometimes management forces you to write documentation - documentation that nobody ever will read - so you use a tool to pump out a steaming mound of pulp, show it to management, and move on. The point is: Know your audience.

etkid84

a big Bronx Cheer if you are using Doxygen, just saying. ;P

~d~

etkid84

Perhaps, now you have some influence, you can convince your employer and team to use Doxygen -- take your code to the next level. :cool::java:

~d~