

Ask HN: The Most Useful Format for API Documentation - sago

I&#x27;m working on the documentation for a new open source system for interactive fiction. It consists of a DSL and an API in Javascript and C#. I have some thoughts about what documentation I&#x27;ve liked, both practically and aesthetically. But it is clear there isn&#x27;t yet a consensus and standard. There are a lot that model the Javadoc approach, some that use the Docco literate approach. And then lots of the tools I rely on (Node, jQuery, Mozilla&#x27;s MDN, etc) use ad-hoc approaches.<p>So is there an approach that works well for you? Are there good approaches for multi-language systems? Why do you think there isn&#x27;t a consensus?
======
andrew-lucker
As a project ages more thought shifts from development to maintenance and
external concerns. What is good for a young project is usually not a good fit
for a mature project. Specifically, young projects tend to care more about
automated documentation generated from code, whereas mature projects just want
a good content management system.

