: Limitations of automatic documentation As technology advances and workflows are streamlined, some have turned to automated tools such as Doxygen, Sphinx, Swagger, etc. in order to generate technical

Vote Up Vote Down

Automated systems such as Sandcastle and Swagger are good at converting code syntax into documentation. Those will produce marginal documentation. What they don't do is add insight into the calls. Rarely does a method exist by itself. There are always additional notes needed, caveats explained, side affects, clarifications for each the parameters, return values, the method itself, and even using the method in a larger context. Compare, for example a typical MSDN reference page with a anyone REST reference page. For each method the MSDN page is longer and more detailed, the material developers want. The REST ones are usually scarce with fewer additionally notes.

Then there are examples and code snippets. No auto generated application can make those. A lot of people don't understand API documentation. 95% of the time, developers just want a sample to copy and paste. Automated documentation rarely generates those.

Many think that being able to use a reference page is enough. It's not. It's the ease and completeness in how the questions are answered that counts. This is the difference between adequate documentation and great documentation.

(0)