Software Documentation Dot Info - Portal for Software Documentation

Here's some information about my software documentation portal, www.softwaredocumentation.info.

The site is a useful resource for anyone involved in the creation, development of and marketing of computer software.

Software documentation falls into two main categories: source code documentation and end user documentation.

The first category of documenting software involves documenting the source code of the software. Documenting software source code is important in that it reminds you what a specific part of an application does. It's especially important to document your code if working in a large team with many developers working on the same project. It also helps in cases where it's likely that your code will one day be further developed by someone else. Finally, if you intend to let other developers use code that you've developed (perhaps you're intending to sell your code, or you're coding a SDK (software development kit) or API that others will use) then it's particularly important to document your source code.

I've worked as a software developer for over ten years now. Take it from me, well documented software source code is a joy to behold! If only more programmers would document their code properly.

The better quality programming languages out there such as Java, C# and VB.NET are great for those developers who want to properly document their source code. I do most of my development using the Microsoft .NET Framework and it's really great that the main programming languages of C# and VB.NET both support XML comments, a standard way of documenting source code.

The nice thing with language that support inline code documentation standards is that there are usually source code documentor utilities that can be used to automatically create high quality documentation from the inline code comments. In the .NET Framework the .NET Documentation Tool creates nice looking documentation from C# or VB.NET application source code.

End user documentation describes to the end user how the computer software can be used. Typically this can take the form of an online manual, PDF manual, Help File and walkthroughs.

Compiling end user documentation can be a long and tedious process but there are a number of end user documentation tools for automating some of the process of creating help files and other documentation.

For compiling Windows Help Files in the standard Windows HTML Help file format (.chm) Microsoft supply the free HTML Help Workshop. This tool is pretty basic and is not much more than a tool for compiling HTML files into a single .chm file. It is good enough for creating help files for simple applications though.

Developers traditionally hate writing end user documentation. It's usually better to use a specially trained technical author, who will generally be much more experienced at writing great software documentation.

Good luck with your software documentation project.