You might want to consider moving to an automated source code documentation system. I recommend dOxygen, and start commenting all your header files in detail so doxygen can pick up on it.

Dennis,

Thanks for the suggestion. Absolutely, this is something we've wanted to do for a long time. I can guarantee that the next code base will be fully documented using an automated documentation system. Once we nail down the next design and API, step one will be to prototype and stub all of the classes and methods. At that point we will be writing in documentation, and then begin writing unit tests. I think one of the first milestones will be a fully compiled code base with very little to no internal implementation and a whole bunch of failing unit tests.

Thanks for staying in touch!

Tom

Tom kinda alluded to this in his post, but he and I have discussed a lot in recent months what we would do differently since we have a chance here with a new effort to "reset" the OpenJAUS code base. Obviously we are several years older and in a very different place both technically and professionally than when the OpenJAUS code base was first built (which was for the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and was in every sense of the word a "rush" effort).

I've been a big proponent of building dOxygen into our code for awhile now. It is, however, a very daunting task to go back and add all that documentation in the headers and source for literally hundreds of files after the fact. I would still like to see it done on the 3.3.x code base, but in all honesty, it probably won't happen.

That said, we will be stricter and more polished in our effort this time. We will have dOxygen documentation from day one. Like Tom said, we'll be building unit testing into the code base from the get go. I hope we will also get smarter about packaging and distribution.

Some of these things we know we want to do. But at the same time, that is what these forums are really for. The more you, the users and the community as a whole, feed into the development plan; the more you feed into the actual development; the more you request things that we don't think of -- the better the end product for everyone.

So thanks for the feedback and please keep it coming!

~Danny