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The Code Can Contain More Information

Another argument against auto-documentation tools was that the source code contains little information. The source code contains data points, lists of code items and their classification, but little description of what they do, what they mean, or why they are the way they are. Neither the code nor the code comments explain the API to an external user.

Just because the source code doesn’t contain more information, doesn’t mean that it can’t.

And even if the source code never does contain more information due to company politics, this does not mean that auto-documentation tools can’t still be employed. Many such tools provide hooks that allow external documentation to be included in the build, in addition to hyperlinking to and from an external systems. Auto-documentation tools can still provide many benefits to the technical writer even in the rare cases of resistance from the software engineers.



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Open-Source tools compliments of Voyant Technologies, Inc. and Glenn C. Maxey.
01/13/2003

TP Tools v2-00-0a

# tpt-hug-02