From:	Robert Watkins robert.watkins@******.com
Subject:	[semi-OT] programming languages' evolution
Date:	Tue, 2 Feb 1999 10:54:10 +1000

Mark A Shieh writes:
> > Good documentation should let you treat a function totally as a
> black box:
> > enter these inputs, you get this output, and these side effects
> occur. And
> > functions do have side effects...
>
> Yeah, they've been drilling this into me for ages. I've never
> claimed that you shouldn't have this type of documentation, only the
> format that the documentation needs to take. My main point is that
> that a programmer who produces poorly documented code isn't going to
> start producing good code just because he's coding in a language and
> environment that produces self-documenting code. As a result, I don't
> see that a language with built-in selfdocumenting tools like Java and
> Javadoc provides any intrinsic advantages over a language that does
> not have these tools (built in).

Okay... a programmer that produces poorly documented code isn't going to
magically start producing good code. But an environment which encourages
documented code will produce better documentation that an environment that
doesn't. Given that documentation is a goal to be desired, tools that reduce
the effort in creating the documentation, and that reduce the effort of
_maintaining_ that documentation, are highly useful. And if the IDE has
enough smarts to use the data itself, that's even better.

--
Duct tape is like the Force: There's a Light side, a Dark side, and it
binds the Universe together.
Robert Watkins -- robert.watkins@******.com