Re: Content and function first (was: The beauty of LATEX)
Joel de Guzman <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.lib.boost.documentation |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
On 10/18/2011 1:30 AM, Mateusz Łoskot wrote: > On 17 October 2011 14:24, Paul A. Bristow <[email protected]> wrote: >> I also suspect we are focussing too much on appearance. Function first! > > +1 and discussing Sphinx I aimed function, not appearance, in case it > wasn't clear. > However, structure is closer to function than appearance, IMO. > >> But beauty is also in the eye of the beholder - and I don't share the 'yetch' reaction of some to the current PDF appearance. >> We could (we have!) spent a lot of time fruitlessly opining about what is most beautiful. >> >> >> IMO it is *content* that is most important, which I why I am so keen on using a tool, for example Doxygen, >> for helping to automate the documentation of what classes and functions do, what parameters (and template >> parameters) do, what their pre and post-conditions are, when functions return, if and when they throw exceptions >> or return error code. > > +1 but it is just a foundation. > > I'd still insist to solve very simple exercise: > > A tiny C++ library. > One concept. > One model. > One algorithm. > > How do we want to document it using Doxygen (in combination with QuickBook)? > At low level, Doxygen documents the basic building blocks of and > syntactical entities of the library. > At high level, ...something needs to attach structure and semantic to > these blocks. > > Doxygen solves issues at low-level of physical structure of content. > IMO, Doxygen needs to be complemented with: > 1) glue framework provided by QuickBook (BoostBook) > 2) glue content written by library authors > 3) glue process. > >> (Much of the opposition to use Doxygen is that some believe that you just chuck the source code into it, and it does everything. >> This is a complete delusion: the author must document what each function does, what parameter are etc. It's tedious work, >> but without that the output is just an outline of the overall C++ structure and lists of classes etc). To many of us, Doxygen is simply out of the question. A C++ library is not just a bunch of Java-ish functions and member functions API that Doxygen is designed for. So, you hijacked this thread regardless of my plea not to: "Please, I don't need another "just use XXX or YYY instead of Quickbook" answer". It's not relevant to my question. Don't you think I value function before form? But ***THAT*** is not the my question. Ah, yeah, you created a new thread. Regards, -- Joel de Guzman http://www.boostpro.com http://boost-spirit.com _______________________________________________ Boost-docs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost-docs