John Campbell wrote:
Even documentation doesn't add much time with javadoc and an IDE like Zend. It fills in most of the stuff for you and adds it to the code completion hints automatically so you get the benefit of the documentation immediately. Once you type /**[enter], and have experienced the magic, you will never go back.
There's documentation and there's documentation/ JavaDoc (or PHP equivalent) is useful bbut it's no substitute for solid design documentation and tuorials (or vice versa) and these take time.
Unit tests work and save time in part because they let programmers focus on what programmers like to do: write code. With occasional exceptions, most programmers don't like to write documentation and they aren't very good at it when they try.
It's still important to have good documentation, but it does take some extra time. Unlike unit testing, I don't believe writing documentation saves you time up front, though it may pay back that time later.
-- Elliotte Rusty Harold [EMAIL PROTECTED] Java I/O 2nd Edition Just Published! http://www.cafeaulait.org/books/javaio2/ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596527500/ref=nosim/cafeaulaitA/ _______________________________________________ New York PHP Community Talk Mailing List http://lists.nyphp.org/mailman/listinfo/talk NYPHPCon 2006 Presentations Online http://www.nyphpcon.com Show Your Participation in New York PHP http://www.nyphp.org/show_participation.php
