Re: Source Code Documentation

[iluvvscotties -at- earthlink -dot- net]

One other caveat which I'm not sure has been mentioned ...

It is human nature for developers to love powerful shortcuts -- e.g., one 
line of code rather than an entire page.  Unfortunately, however, this sort 
of programming is usually *MUCH* less intuitive than the lengthier 
alternative, and often entails functions/commands with which most 
programmers are not familiar.
I think that it was one of Alan Zenreich's books which stressed the KISS 
(Keep It Simple, Stupid) rule, and mentioned a professor who graded a 
student's code with "Very impressive and imaginative ... -15".

Since few programmers will be familiar with this type of coding (and it 
will probably be difficult to find in manuals, etc.), it is imperative that 
it be clearly documented in case some poor soul has to modify it at a later 
date.

If you're familiar with the programming language, this is comparatively 
easy to do.  If not, perhaps you could show it to a few 
programmers/developers and ask them if they recognize any unique or 
unfamiliar techniques.  (Most developers *LOVE* the opportunity to look at 
other people's code.  If any proprietary information is involved, you could 
restrict this to company employees, run it past the head honcho, etc.)  If 
any turn up, you can ask the programmer who wrote the code for a reasonable 
description for posterity.

Just remember that the main purpose of source code documentation is to 
ensure that the code can be modified, enhanced, and/or corrected at a later 
date, at which time the original programmer(s) may be long gone, the 
programmer assigned to fix it may not even know the language (alas, this 
happens all too often) -- and, if enough time has passed, there may not 
even be any available manuals or books on the subject.  It is therefore 
imperative that unique, esoteric techniques be very clearly described.


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