Documentation for
existing software

Software Documentation

Imagix Corp

As a software developer, one of your least desirable and least rewarding tasks is writing documention for your own software. It's dull, unimaginative work. Usually you put it off until the end of a project, and by then you're exhausted from your tight deadlines. And you don't get much benefit yourself, since you already understand your own code.

Yet, when you need to support or reuse someone else's software, all too often you find your job made more difficult by the poor job that the original developers did in documenting their code.

Research indicates that 5% to 15% of development effort goes into software documentation. By automating this task, you can save significant effort, get more accurate documents, and avoid some genuinely unpleasant work.


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software documentation Automated Document Generation -- Imagix 4D helps software developers generate comprehensive technical documents, for either their own software, or for code that they've inherited. Using information in the Imagix 4D database and in the source code itself, Imagix 4D automates the task of documenting each component (file, class, function, etc.) in the software. You get accurate, up-to-date design documents with minimal effort.

Imagix 4D can output the software documentation in three formats, which support different uses. ASCII format results in simple, readable files, which might then be post-processed. You can import RTF (rich text format) output into your word processor to produce formal hardcopy design documentats, controlling type styles and page layout. And the HTML format generates intranet, on-line documentation, complete with hypertext links.

The usefulness of this automatically generated design documentation is best understood by viewing a sample, which was generated by loading sample source code into Imagix 4D, and then simply selecting what portions of the project to document, and what types of information to include.