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Subject:Re: Code examples/templates From:"Jeanne A. E. DeVoto" <jaed -at- jaedworks -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 15 Aug 2001 18:54:30 -0700
At 10:01 AM -0700 8/15/2001, Jane Carnall wrote:
>I'd like to kick this in for discussion. In one of the projects I'm working
>on, we provide (currently 8) code examples/templates. What I did for the
>beta release was comment the code heavily, mark each comment, and refer to
>the comments from the documentation. Now "Ma" below has suggested another
>way of doing it (my response is below) and I really am not sure whether I'm
>for or against it. On the one hand, it would certainly make that chapter of
>the manual easier reading - no flipping back and forth between manual and
>code - on the other, well, see my response under "Me".
The process of reading documentation/flipping to code/searching for marked
comment/flipping back to documentation is irritating enough that I'd be
inclined to avoid it if at all possible. (I do like heavily-commented
example code, however.)
How about, where you have a section of documentation that deals with a
section of code, incorporating a line or three of that code inline with the
documentation at that point? Readers can read the entire heavily-commented
code example, then read the documentation on it, and have the specific line
being described right there in front of them for easy reference while
reading.
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