cvs commit: src Makefile.inc1 ObsoleteFiles.inc src/etc/defaults rc.conf src/etc/mtree BSD.usr.dist src/etc/rc.d Makefile isdnd pcvt syscons src/release/picobsd/build picobsd src/share/man/man4 Makefile atkbd.4 kbdmux.4 pcvt.4 splash.4 vkbd.4 ...

Frank Mayhar frank at exit.com
Thu May 18 11:32:38 PDT 2006


[Doxygen]

Once upon a time, Back In The Day(tm), I worked on a mainframe OS called
CP6.  CP6 had a lot of cool attributes, but the one that is relevant
here is that we kept our entire API documentation (including multiple
levels of error messages) in the code itself.  Every distinct type of
documentation had a special comment-code (like, for example, /*E* to
start an error message block) and we had a munger that would crawl the
source, extract the marked commentary and assemble it into a formatted
manual.  A tech writer wrote the introduction and a few other things,
but those tended to remain static with only minor tweaks from release to
release.  The really big changes were done in the marked commentary by
the developers involved.

It worked, but of course it required discipline, both personal and
imposed.  That's the tricky part in an all-volunteer effort.
-- 
Frank Mayhar frank at exit.com     http://www.exit.com/
Exit Consulting                 http://www.gpsclock.com/
                                http://www.exit.com/blog/frank/


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