Summary

In this chapter, we examined the need for software documentation aimed at both end-users and developers (user documentation and developer documentation respectively). We also examined some formats this documentation can be presented in: HTML, Markdown, and XML. We also discussed autodocumentation tools, which generate developer documentation from specially-formatted comments in our code files.

We examined the C# approach to autodocumentation, using Microsoft’s XML code comments formatting strategy. We explored how this data is used by Visual Studio to power its Intellisense features, and provide useful information to programmers as they work with constructs like classes, properties, and methods. For this reason, as well as the ability to produce HTML-based documentation using an autodocumentation tool, it is best practice to use XML code comments in all your C# programs.