Use JSDoc and a few carefully crafted comments to document your JavaScript!
"Good code is its own best documentation.
As you're about to add a comment, ask yourself,
'How can I improve the code so that this comment isn't needed?'
Improve the code and then document it to make it even clearer." ~ Steve McConnell (Code Complete)
"Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code
will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live." ~ Martin Golding
Once you have Node.js installed in your terminal run:
npm install jsdoc
or if you have an existing node project, add jsdoc to devDependencies in package.json
Create a javascript file and add the following comments/code
/**
* Hello "Name"
*
* @param {string} name person/thing you want to say hello to.
* @returns {string} Hello + name
*/
function hello(name) {
return "Hello "+name +"!";
}Now run jsdoc in your command line: jsdoc
This will create the out directory which contains the mini-documentation for the simple hello function. Open the out/index.html file in your browser
The vast majority of JSDoc tags are useless. For a full list of tags see: https://usejsdoc.org/#JSDoc3_Tag_Dictionary
I will update this tutorial as and when I use a new tag. For now I'm only using @param, @returns and @example
Q: Do I need Java to run JSDoc?
A: No. Java is not required. :-)
- JSDoc GitHub Repo https://github.com/jsdoc3/jsdoc
- Documentation: https://usejsdoc.org/
- Wiki: https://code.google.com/p/jsdoc-toolkit/w/list
- Examples: https://code.google.com/p/jsdoc-toolkit/wiki/DocExamples
- Tag Reference: https://code.google.com/p/jsdoc-toolkit/wiki/TagReference
- Bit old but still relevant: https://www.2ality.com/2011/08/jsdoc-intro.html
- DailyJS (Dox): https://dailyjs.com/2011/01/20/framework-part-47/
- DZone Intro: https://css.dzone.com/articles/introduction-jsdoc
- Dox: https://github.com/visionmedia/dox
- Docco: https://jashkenas.github.io/docco/ + https://github.com/jashkenas/docco
- https://quotes.cat-v.org/programming/
- https://www.linfo.org/q_programming.html
- https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/programming
- https://www.javacodegeeks.com/2012/11/20-kick-ass-programming-quotes.html
- https://www.marcofolio.net/tips/27_inspiring_top_notch_programming_quotes.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20100818203850/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/58640/great-programming-quotes
@todo Move this to main node.js tutorial
- What is package.json: https://docs.nodejitsu.com/articles/getting-started/npm/what-is-the-file-package-json
- Interactive Guid: https://package.json.nodejitsu.com/