While working on my C++ Portable Components library and thinking about its documentation I got the idea to use a Wiki to enhance the documentation of the whole thing.
The idea is as follows: I have a tool that generates HTML documentation for the complete class library from the inline documentation in the C++ header files. Basically, a HTML page is generated for every C++ class (the same way that JavaDoc works). The generator now simply adds a link to a Wiki page for every C++ class and method. On the Wiki page, additional example code, tips and tricks, as well as user comments and questions will be collected, thus augmenting the automatically generated documentation.
With this concept, it is quite easy for users of the software to find all the relevant documentation. No need to search separate "knowledge bases" or browse through endless lists of Frequently Asked Questions.
Of course it would also be nice to make the actual reference page for a class itself a Wiki page. But since this documentation will be frequently re-generated, this would make the implementation of the whole thing quite different, so the automatically generated page will be separate from the Wiki page for now.
Next thing is to decide on which Wiki software to use...
Posted by guenter at January 29, 2005 09:14 AM