From: tomas@tuxteam.de
To: Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl>
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Docstrings and literate programming (good practices?)
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2022 09:06:40 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <Y2TIELOw5c9Vr7+L@tuxteam.de> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87mt976x6f.fsf@mbork.pl>
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1628 bytes --]
On Fri, Nov 04, 2022 at 07:39:04AM +0100, Marcin Borkowski wrote:
>
> On 2022-11-04, at 06:45, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
[...]
> > Ah. Javadoc and their descendants. I tend to call that "illiterate
> > programming"...
>
> I spat my tea. :-) Thanks, that's a nice one!
Sorry to hear that ;-P
> Though this _may_ work in some cases. For example, imagine you divide
> your package into two files – one with user-facing commands and another
> one with internal functions. If you order the former one carefully, the
> "extract docstrings" might actually work as a documentation.
Yes, of course it's just a tool; but that kind of tool all too often
seduces people to switch to auto-pilot.
How many Doxygen docs have I had which tell me that function so-and-
so takes an int as third argument? I can see that by inspecting the
source! As a bonus, I don't get that much optical fluff and don't
have to go to the browser to look at it.
> Still, a "normal" documentation seems a better (even if more
> time-consuming) options.
Yes, it takes work.
> Also, such docstring-based documentation is still better than none.
That depends on how much work goes into the docstring. This:
/* add 2 to x */
x += 2;
is the typical quality you get when you're writing the docs while
waist-deep in the code. If you want good docs, you have to take a
step back and try to put yourself into the mind of someone else
(i.e. "forget" for a moment all the implicit knowledge you have
about that code you've been intimate with for weeks, perhaps for
years). That's not easy :)
Cheers
--
t
[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 195 bytes --]
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2022-11-04 8:08 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 19+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2022-11-01 14:07 Docstrings and literate programming (good practices?) Juan Manuel Macías
2022-11-02 7:13 ` Ihor Radchenko
2022-11-02 7:53 ` Dr. Arne Babenhauserheide
2022-11-02 10:43 ` Ihor Radchenko
2022-11-02 12:49 ` Juan Manuel Macías
2022-11-02 13:05 ` Ihor Radchenko
2022-11-02 15:20 ` Juan Manuel Macías
2022-11-03 7:38 ` Ihor Radchenko
2022-11-03 20:54 ` Rudolf Adamkovič
2022-11-04 3:03 ` Samuel Wales
2022-11-04 5:45 ` tomas
2022-11-04 6:39 ` Marcin Borkowski
2022-11-04 7:13 ` Samuel Wales
2022-11-04 8:08 ` tomas
2022-11-04 8:06 ` tomas [this message]
2022-11-04 8:49 ` Ihor Radchenko
2022-11-05 2:07 ` Samuel Wales
2022-11-08 4:10 ` Samuel Wales
2022-11-04 11:45 ` Max Nikulin
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
List information: https://www.orgmode.org/
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=Y2TIELOw5c9Vr7+L@tuxteam.de \
--to=tomas@tuxteam.de \
--cc=emacs-orgmode@gnu.org \
--cc=mbork@mbork.pl \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this public inbox
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs/org-mode.git
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).