Warp wrote:
>   That's your argument for dismissing all the private types, functions and
> data that can be specified in a source file (and which don't belong to the
> header file)?

Maybe that's just the crap I've run into myself. :-)

>> However, since C# makes the "makefile" structure part of the language, it's 
>> possible to write tools that extract equivalent documentation from C# that 
>> you can't as easily write in a portable way for C++.  I.e., even if you have 
>> a complete C++ parser, now you need a whole lot of extra stuff to understand 
>> *which* header files go with *which* source files when you're trying to 
>> parse C++.
> 
>   I'm not completely following what you are saying.

I'm saying that the argument seems to be "C++ header files are better, 
because it's not mixed in with the implementation stuff."  When I point out 
that you can get documentation out of C# that's just like C++ header files, 
people point out you need a tool to do that.

That's an incorrect assertion. You don't need a tool to make that 
documentation any more than you need a tool to make C++ header files. C++ 
header files aren't better because they're C++, but because they're manually 
constructed and maintained. If they aren't manually constructed and 
maintained, then you need a tool to do that just like you do for C++.

And the tool for C++ will have a harder time of it, *because* there's no 
indication of any compilation units bigger than a .cpp file, and so on. 
I.e. you can't just give a pile of C++ source files to a tool and have it 
understand the code without having it figure out and understand all the 
compiler command lines as well. (This goes for C as well, of course.)

I can give you all the source code I'm working on, and there's no way you 
could ever figure out how to compile it without trying to compile and run it 
against each set of header files to see what works, for example. That's not 
the case with C#, because there's a file in a standard format that serves 
the purpose of a makefile and which the libraries already have tools to deal 
with.



-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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