... and that automated documentation al la doxygen, javadoc etc. is almost worse than none; as it gives the appearance of 'well documented' with none of the true benefits.

I could not agree more with this assertion. While such systems have one or two plus points (consistency of presentation, docs always in sync with code) this is usually far outweighed by the complete lack of any semantic meaning to the resulting documentation. There are no reasons given, no caveats, no SSCCEs, no algorithm references. And if/when the code author uses less than meaningful symbol names the whole exercise becomes pointless.

For the particularly complex dists which this thread addresses the resulting volume of brutalist formal data churned out by such auto-documenters is enough to send anyone scurrying for sanctuary. Fine for a reference no doubt, especially to those already well familiar with the dist in question, but not for the neophytes who are only after a gentle concept-based introduction.

In reply to Re^2: The problem of documenting complex modules.(Summation.) by hippo
in thread The problem of documenting complex modules. by BrowserUk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.