Javadoc or Doxygen?

If you have been thinking about how to improve your technical documentation, than you have to take a look at the article I wrote last week at both Javalobby and also Test Early.

Here are a few reasons why you should consider using the Doxygen:

1. With Javadoc you have to remember all the HTML tags, you need to embed within your code comments. However, with Doxygen code comments are much more concise and polished, without the need for any HTML.

2. Doxygen can also generate a variety of diagrams, we will take a look at some of them later.

3. Doxygen also provides a structured view on the source code. As I mentioned in 2 above in the form of various diagrams, cross-referenced and syntax highlighted code.

4. You get all the above benefits even if the code does not have any comments at all.

5. Last but not the least, Doxygen is a documentation system not for just Java but also for various other languages like C++, C, Java, Objective-C, Python, IDL (Corba and Microsoft flavors), Fortran, VHDL, PHP, C#.

The article shows in detailed steps the following:

Step 1. Download, Install Doxygen.

Step 2: Configure Doxygen.

Step 3. Doxygen and Ant.

Step 4. Integrate with Hudson.