Learn JSDoc

Use JSDoc and a few carefully crafted comments to document your JavaScript!

"Good code is its own best documentation.
As you're about to add a comment, ask yourself,
'How can I improve the code so that this comment isn't needed?'
Improve the code and then document it to make it even clearer." ~ Steve McConnell (Code Complete)

"Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code
will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live." ~ Martin Golding

Installation

Once you have Node.js installed in your terminal run:

npm install jsdoc

or if you have an existing node project, add jsdoc to devDependencies in package.json

Baby Steps

Create a javascript file and add the following comments/code

/**
 * Hello "Name"
 *
 * @param {string} name person/thing you want to say hello to.
 * @returns {string} Hello + name 
 */
function hello(name) {
  return "Hello "+name +"!";
}

Now run jsdoc in your command line: jsdoc

This will create the out directory which contains the mini-documentation for the simple hello function. Open the out/index.html file in your browser

The vast majority of JSDoc tags are useless. For a full list of tags see: http://usejsdoc.org/#JSDoc3_Tag_Dictionary

I will update this tutorial as and when I use a new tag. For now I'm only using @param, @returns and @example

FAQ

Q: Do I need Java to run JSDoc?
A: No. Java is not required. :-)

Useful Links

• JSDoc GitHub Repo https://github.com/jsdoc3/jsdoc
• Documentation: http://usejsdoc.org/
• Wiki: https://code.google.com/p/jsdoc-toolkit/w/list
• Examples: https://code.google.com/p/jsdoc-toolkit/wiki/DocExamples
• Tag Reference: https://code.google.com/p/jsdoc-toolkit/wiki/TagReference

Tutorials

• Bit old but still relevant: http://www.2ality.com/2011/08/jsdoc-intro.html
• DailyJS (Dox): http://dailyjs.com/2011/01/20/framework-part-47/
• DZone Intro: http://css.dzone.com/articles/introduction-jsdoc

Investigate

• Dox: https://github.com/visionmedia/dox
• Docco: http://jashkenas.github.io/docco/ + https://github.com/jashkenas/docco

Useless But Interesting Programming Quotes

• http://quotes.cat-v.org/programming/
• http://www.linfo.org/q_programming.html
• http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/programming
• http://www.javacodegeeks.com/2012/11/20-kick-ass-programming-quotes.html
• http://www.marcofolio.net/tips/27_inspiring_top_notch_programming_quotes.html
• http://web.archive.org/web/20100818203850/http://stackoverflow.com/questions/58640/great-programming-quotes

Package.json

@todo Move this to main node.js tutorial

• What is package.json: http://docs.nodejitsu.com/articles/getting-started/npm/what-is-the-file-package-json
• Interactive Guid: http://package.json.nodejitsu.com/