Squeak Doc...

Lex Spoon lex at cc.gatech.edu
Thu May 25 18:30:53 UTC 2000


> >Is there a way of generating Squeak documentation in a manner similar to 
> >Java Doc?
> 
> No.  At least not in the base image.  There's also no convention to tag and 
> document variables and results as for Java methods.  Most methods tend to 
> be undocumented or under-documented if you apply the JavaDoc standards here.
> 

Wow, this debate goes around and around.  I hope I'm not putting words
in anyone's mouth, but many Smalltalkers end up with these perspectives:

	1. Once you learn to use the Smalltalk code browsing tools, why would
you ever want to use Netscape instead?!  If you find an example, let's
incorporate it into Squeak instead of bailing out to a web browser

	2. Method and class comments, are fairly easy, and provide a good basic
level of documentation.  People should write them!  Almost all classes
should have a comment, and at least the canonical version of any method
should have a comment.  (Which can then be found by hitting
implementers-of)

	3. Having an 'examples' category for a class really helps, and it's
easy to do.

	4. We also need documentation about whole *packages*, eg "Programming
in Raw Morphic".  Unfortunately, this is harder to do.


One more thing to put in the mix, is that Squeak is evolving. 
Documentation will be more important when it's figured out what exactly
Squeak will *be*....


Anyway, documentation good, Javadoc bad.

-Lex





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