What is Auto doc snippet generation? Its a very simple feature that i think should atleast be optionally be provided in every IDE tool to enhance overall project coding experience. Let me describe what this simple feature should do (I am not aware of any tool/plugin which is already available so far)...
Just as you declare a variable, and just as you are done, ';' should auto generate the doc skeleton, create a //TODO:write comment snippet auto-select it and get you ready to just type what it is supposed to do.
Just as you write a function and as you "}" (close) the function, it should auto generate the doc skeleton, create a //TODO:write comment snippet auto-select it and get you ready to just type what it is suppsed to do. As you change your function signature it should introspect existing doc skeleton and alter the argument types, return types etc. without having to manually go and edit it.
Just as you close a loop (ex: for, while etc.), it should auto generate the doc skeleton, create a //TODO:write comment snippet auto-select it and get you ready to just type what the logic is for..
Just as you write an if condition, it should auto generate the doc skeleton, create a //TODO:write comment snippet auto-select it and get you ready to just type what this condition is for..
I've worked on a lot of projects but none of the projects were fully documented. Every developer has his/her own way of writing a piece of code. Even when you have a code monitoring tool, peer code review process, strict code guidelines to follow on every project (which is predominently seen in product based companies than services based companies and a less often in some companies who just want to get things working without having to bother much about spending time in writing code comments), there is always a scope of the code being written is left undocumented. There are some companies who enforce strict documentation on the code written but at the end they see themselves doing just 50-60% of it overall. I would say there are atleast 70% or more of the larger audience who concentrate on putting their brain at work by writing the actual code and get things working and leave their baby code undocumented unintensionally due to other work priorities. Developers may change and a new developer joining in is always targetted to face the tough time with the gaint code. Even the developer who wrote the code 4 months ago doesnt completely remember what's written unless he spends some time by going through the code again.
How does a fully-documented code look like? Many people like to read the lines of code as they glance it and seeing a lot of comments written due to auto-doc snippet generation sometimes might disturb them. I do agree, but we can always have preference options to show/hide doc snippets, fold/unfold doc snippets.. everything is possible. As the application code grows larger and larger with tons of frameworks out there, the code is crying out loud - "If you dont document me now, i'll kill you or someone in the long run"...
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