[Lazarus] Documentation of Lazarus internals

Juha Manninen juha.manninen at phnet.fi
Fri Nov 13 15:01:49 CET 2009


On perjantai, 13. marraskuuta 2009 08:32:22 Mattias Gaertner wrote:

> There are examples in components/codetools/examples.

Ok, I will look at them more closely.


> > It would be nice to look at a class diagram, then a use case diagram
> > and then maybe a sequence diagram to get an idea of how it works and
> > which class does what.
> 
> Can you suggest tools to create them?

I honestly don't know the free / open source UML tools. In my previous work I 
tried the Delphi's integrated UML tool and also ModelMaker. They are bi-
directional and changing a class diagram changes code. I didn't like it 
because it was too easy to mess up the whole source. Later I used Rational 
Rose for different UML diagrams. It is very good but it is commercial and not 
suitable for Lazarus documentation.

It is important to notice that a class diagram is most useful when it doesn't 
include every detail. That's why the synchronized source <--> diagram link is 
not the best idea.
A class diagram should have only the essential parts and their relations. The 
details can be found in source code but the diagram tell you where to look for 
those details.

There seems to be many free UML tools available. Maybe someone has used them 
and can say which one is good.


> > Then read the class and method level documents
> > made with FPDoc. And then finally read source code when the big
> > picture is clear.
> >
> > If there is no such documentation ... well, then I must say that my
> > own programs are well documented after all. I thought I had a problem
> > with poor documentation.
> 
> What do you want to do? Maybe I can start the documentation with that.

I was planning to look at the Delphi converter more. I need to learn quite 
much code to understand it.
To improve the converter I would make it more automatic, set all unit 
dependencies correctly, make the converted file compile with both Delphi and 
Lazarus... Just ideas...
I could even have some time to spend for an open source project.

I am not blaming any of you for not making documents. I know it does not feel 
like a top priority for any programmer.
However I am wondering how does a big project with many programmers survive 
without good documentation. At least it is more difficult for new people to 
enter the development. Or maybe some people are so smart they don't need 
documents, don't know. How do other projects do it? I haven't studied it much.


Regards,
Juha Manninen




More information about the Lazarus mailing list