Windows Developer Power Tools

7.6 For More Information

The book quoted at the start of this chapter is a good place to start reading about the right level of documentation for your software:

• Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries, by Krzysztof Cwalina and Brad Abrams (Addison-Wesley)

Get some balance into the picture by understanding the brutally lean approach to documentation taken by Extreme Programming’s advocates:

• Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change, Second Edition, by Kent Beck (Addison-Wesley)

Steve McConnell’s seminal work, often referenced elsewhere in this book, also has great information on when and why to document:

• Code Complete, Second Edition, by Steve McConnell (Microsoft Press)

Two Wiki pages at the Extreme Programming Roadmap site nicely lay out more detail on XP’s approach and implementation of documentation:

• http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ExtremeDocuments

• http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?XpHasWrittenDocuments

Microsoft’s references for XML comment tags can be found online at:

• C#: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/csref/html/vclrftagsfordocumentationcomments.asp

• Visual Basic: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms172653.aspx