Meta-programming question
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Or rather, documentation question. Let's say you have a program or framework or something that uses some cool XML file. You wish to document that XML file in an intuitive way. I got to thinking, I can't recall many documents describing specific XML formats. What are some good ways this could be done? I'm sure somebody will suggest writing a tool that can generate the XML and provide a nice, easy to use user interface. Indeed, that would be cool, but that's a long way off. In the meantime, I need to just get what's out there documented. Any ideas? Especially from you authors in the bunch. :-D The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
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Or rather, documentation question. Let's say you have a program or framework or something that uses some cool XML file. You wish to document that XML file in an intuitive way. I got to thinking, I can't recall many documents describing specific XML formats. What are some good ways this could be done? I'm sure somebody will suggest writing a tool that can generate the XML and provide a nice, easy to use user interface. Indeed, that would be cool, but that's a long way off. In the meantime, I need to just get what's out there documented. Any ideas? Especially from you authors in the bunch. :-D The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
Isn't a Schema enough?;P The only one that I can think of offhand is the .config file documentation, which is part of MSDN.
I can imagine the sinking feeling one would have after ordering my book, only to find a laughably ridiculous theory with demented logic once the book arrives - Mark McCutcheon
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Isn't a Schema enough?;P The only one that I can think of offhand is the .config file documentation, which is part of MSDN.
I can imagine the sinking feeling one would have after ordering my book, only to find a laughably ridiculous theory with demented logic once the book arrives - Mark McCutcheon
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I was considering that... and noticed that sometimes XML is documented in that way (or with DTD's.) The only thing, it can be very confusing for someone who might not speak Schema-ese. The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
I was serious about the .config file documentation. Configuration File Schema[^] I'm not sure how they generated this documentation, but it would be sweet if they had it built into the VS.Net documentation generation. There might be something in NDoc.
I can imagine the sinking feeling one would have after ordering my book, only to find a laughably ridiculous theory with demented logic once the book arrives - Mark McCutcheon
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Or rather, documentation question. Let's say you have a program or framework or something that uses some cool XML file. You wish to document that XML file in an intuitive way. I got to thinking, I can't recall many documents describing specific XML formats. What are some good ways this could be done? I'm sure somebody will suggest writing a tool that can generate the XML and provide a nice, easy to use user interface. Indeed, that would be cool, but that's a long way off. In the meantime, I need to just get what's out there documented. Any ideas? Especially from you authors in the bunch. :-D The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
I'm seconding Andy's .config file documentation recommendation. I can't tell you how helpful it's been when I've been hacking web.config files or system.config files.
[Cheshire] I can't afford those plastic things to cover the electric sockets so I just draw bunny faces on the electric outlets to scare the kids away from them... [RLtim] Newsflash! Kids aren't afraid of bunnies. [Cheshire] Oh they will be... -Bash.org
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Or rather, documentation question. Let's say you have a program or framework or something that uses some cool XML file. You wish to document that XML file in an intuitive way. I got to thinking, I can't recall many documents describing specific XML formats. What are some good ways this could be done? I'm sure somebody will suggest writing a tool that can generate the XML and provide a nice, easy to use user interface. Indeed, that would be cool, but that's a long way off. In the meantime, I need to just get what's out there documented. Any ideas? Especially from you authors in the bunch. :-D The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
Navin wrote: You wish to document that XML file in an intuitive way. It's called XSD. ;P Marc MyXaml Advanced Unit Testing YAPO
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Or rather, documentation question. Let's say you have a program or framework or something that uses some cool XML file. You wish to document that XML file in an intuitive way. I got to thinking, I can't recall many documents describing specific XML formats. What are some good ways this could be done? I'm sure somebody will suggest writing a tool that can generate the XML and provide a nice, easy to use user interface. Indeed, that would be cool, but that's a long way off. In the meantime, I need to just get what's out there documented. Any ideas? Especially from you authors in the bunch. :-D The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
Another example. NAnt also documents their XML format, but it isn't as good as the .config file format. However their xml format is close to a direct representation of their object model. They just use the documentation generated by their objects and note some cases that are different. They also provide a tool that generates the XSD from their object model so if you make changes to the code or add tasks you can generate a custom XSD which is nice.
I can imagine the sinking feeling one would have after ordering my book, only to find a laughably ridiculous theory with demented logic once the book arrives - Mark McCutcheon