The Future of (API) Documentation
The immediate future for software is that
the source code has to be able to describe itself. The code comments
need to be in a standard format that can easily be extracted with the
syntax into online reference systems. This is paramount for both open-source
and proprietary code if software companies want any longevity and reusability
out of their code.
Whereas I believe that XML
will (initially) provide only marginal added-value to run-of-the-mill
documentation, this is not true when it comes to API documentation.
(a) If the source code contains comment that can be extracted, (b) if
those comments can contain HTML syntax (as is the case with open-source
Doxygen comments), and (c) if the need remains for the source code to
describe itself, then XML tags within the code comments is a natural
extension.
If the source code itself is well commented
and marked up appropriately with descriptive XML tags, the hooks are
then in place for having the source code for software solutions served
up from data bases.
Open-Source tools compliments of Voyant Technologies, Inc. and Glenn C. Maxey.
01/13/2003
TP Tools v2-00-0a
# tpt-hug-02