xref: /minix/external/bsd/bind/dist/doc/doxygen/mainpage (revision 00b67f09)
1// -*- C++ -*-
2// Id: mainpage,v 1.2 2006/12/22 01:44:59 marka Exp
3//
4// Doxygen text.  Lines beginning with two slashes are comments; lines
5// beginning with three slashes are Doxygen input.
6
7/// \mainpage
8/// \section mainpage_overview Overview
9/// \par
10///
11/// This is the beginning of an internals manual for BIND9.  It's
12/// still very rough in many places.
13///
14/// \li See the files in doc/doxygen for the source to this page and
15///     the Doxygen configuration that generates the rest of the manual.
16///
17/// \li See the tabs at the top of the screen to navigate through the
18///     generated documentation.
19///
20/// \li See <a href="http://www.doxygen.org/">the Doxygen web site</a>
21///     for more information about Doxygen, including its manual.
22///
23/// \section mainpage_knownissues Known Issues
24/// \par
25///
26/// Known issues with our current use of Doxygen:
27///
28/// \li In a major departure from previous attempts to use Doxygen
29///     with BIND9, this manual attempts to take the simplest approach
30///     to every choice Doxygen gives us.  We don't generate fancy
31///     extra Doxygen tags files from the RFC database.  We don't
32///     attempt to use Doxygen as a wrapper framework for other
33///     documentation (eg, ISC Tech Notes, the ARM, ...).  We don't
34///     try to generate the list of files to document on the fly.
35///     Instead, we attempt to use Doxygen's native facilities
36///     wherever possible, on the assumption that we'll add new
37///     features later as we need them but should start as simply as
38///     we can.
39///
40/// \li Our use of \\file is wrong in many places.  We probably should
41///     be marking header files with the names by which we include
42///     them (eg, "dns/resolver.h").  Doxygen reports filename
43///     conflicts in a few cases where it can't work out which of
44///     several files to use.
45///
46/// \li At the moment we're instructing Doxygen to document all
47///     functions, whether they have proper comment markup or not.
48///     This is a good way to see what's been marked up, but might not
49///     be the right approach in the long run.
50///
51/// \li See doc/doxygen/doxygen-input-filter.in for local abbreviations.
52///
53/// \li We're probably over-using the \\brief markup tag.
54///
55/// \li We may in fact be confusing Doxygen to the point where it's
56///     not finding markup comments that it should.  Needs
57///     investigation.
58///
59/// \li At the moment I have all the cool "dot" stuff turned off,
60///     both because it's a distraction and because it slows down
61///     doxygen runs.  Maybe after I get a faster desk machine. :)
62///
63/// \li At the moment we're producing a single "BIND9 Internals"
64///     manual.   One of our previous complications was an attempt to
65///     produce separate manuals for each library, then cross-link
66///     them.  We might still need separate library manuals, but, if
67///     so, it might be easier to have the BIND9 Internals manual be a
68///     superset of the library manuals (ie, reuse the same source to
69///     produce differently scoped manuals).   Would certainly be
70///     simpler than the cross-linking mess, but partly it's a
71///     question of how we want to present the material.
72///
73/// \li Doxygen is slanted towards C++.  It can be tuned towards plain
74///     old C, but the C++ bias still shows up in places, eg, the lack
75///     of top-level menu support for functions (in C++, the basic
76///     unit of programming is the class, which Doxygen does support
77///     directly).   This is a bit annoying, but not all that
78///     critical.
79///
80/// \li If we ever get really ambitious, we might try processing
81///     Doxygen's XML output, which is basicly a dump of what Doxygen
82///     was able to scrape from the sources.   This would be a major
83///     project, just something to think about if there's something we
84///     really don't like about the output Doxygen generates.  Punt
85///     for now.
86