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177 lines
9.1 KiB
HTML
177 lines
9.1 KiB
HTML
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
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<html>
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<head>
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<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
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<title>Layout Documentation Overview</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>Layout Documentation Overview</h1>
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<blockquote> Authors: <br>
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<ul>
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<li>Marc Attinasi (attinasi@netscape.com)</li>
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</ul>
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History: <br>
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<ul>
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<li>12/17/2001 - created<br>
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</li>
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</ul>
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</blockquote>
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<h2>Background</h2>
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The Layout module of Gecko has not been documented very well. This has lead
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to some predictable problems: difficult maintenance, hard to get new people
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involved in the module, problems assessing the risk of changes, hard to know
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where bugs are likely to be in the source. One extreme result of the
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lack of comprehensive has been an urge to rewrite some of the more impenetrable
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parts of the layout component, the block and Line Layout areas. Rather
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than throwing it all away and rewriting it, we have decided to put significant
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effort into thoroughly documenting what we already have. this effort will
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help us to understand what parts of the system we want to keep as-is, incrementally
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revise, or wholesale rewrite. Additionally, we will make the code base more
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accessible to new (and not-so-new) engineers.<br>
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<br>
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<h2>Strategy:</h2>
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Documenting all of Block and Line layout is a large task, so it will be
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divided up among knowledgeable and interested engineers. Progress will be
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tracked in bugzilla <a href="http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=115310">
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bug 115310</a>
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. This document lays out the basic documentation scope and formatting
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so that all of the individual contributions can be combined into a relatively
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cohesive unit of linked documents. <br>
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<br>
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<h2>Scope:</h2>
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The documentation will generally cover two levels of detail. There is room
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for deviation from this as needed, but generally a High Level Design document
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and a Detailed Design document will provide the necessary level of detail
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for those trying to understand the system as a whole, and those trying to
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get into the code.<br>
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<br>
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<h3>High Level Designs</h3>
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High level designs provided an overview of the system being documented.
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The general concept of the component is described, and the classes involved
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are described briefly (no details of the class implementations). In
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some cases the high level design vocabulary consists of other components
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and not classes. The important thing is to describe the interactions
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between the classes and/or components such that the reader gets an understanding
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of which pieces talk to which other pieces, what kinds of data are shared
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by various components or classes, how the data is modified and by whom, beginning
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states and end states of a process, and external constraints or inputs into
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the system begin described. <br>
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<br>
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A fundamental piece of the high-level design is the<b> data model</b>. This
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is generally a graphical representation of the classes or components involved
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in the system, showing the relationships between them in terms of has-a,
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is-a, uses, owns, etc. the specific representation is not as important as
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the content of the representation. For example, using UML or Booch notation
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is fine, as is an ad-hoc diagram that shows the same types of information.<br>
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<br>
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Another important piece of the high-level design is a set of <b>use-cases</b>
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that describe specific interaction that result from specific events in
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the system. For example, we might want to show specifically what happens
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when an attribute is changed on an element via the DOM. Use cases differ
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from data models in that they show specific instances of objects or components,
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actual data values where interesting or important, and often give a glimpse
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into the algorithms employed. All of the components or objects in the use
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cases must be documented in the data model.<br>
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<b><br>
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State Transition Diagrams</b> may be important to some systems, and they
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should be documented in the high-level design as well. These should be described
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in terms of the abstract states that the system may be in, not in terms of
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how the state-machine is actually implemented.<br>
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<br>
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The high-level documents provide an overview of the components and classes
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that make up a system. It can be used as a road map to the related detailed
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design documents for the components and classes involved in the system. thus,
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the classes, components, and algorithms referenced in the high-level design
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document should be linked to the detailed design documents that correspond.
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This link generally occurs at the first reference to the class or component,
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but it can be provided in other contexts as well, for convenience to the reader.
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Missing or invalid links are considered errors in the high-level design.
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<br>
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<br>
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<h3>Detailed Designs</h3>
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Detailed design documents provide specific information needed to implement
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(or understand the implementation of) the components and classes described
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in the high-level design. Users of the classes or components should also be
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able to understand from the detailed design just how the classes, components
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and API's are to be used. Special performance characteristics of methods or
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interactions should be documented where pertinent.<br>
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<br>
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<h4>Public API</h4>
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The public API of the component or class being documented is essential to
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the detailed design. Each publicly accessible interface, method and data member
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must be documented. Ideally this information is contained in the implementation
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files for a class, interface or component. If this is the case, the actual
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IDL or class header file can be used as the documentation for the public API.
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This should be done as a link or embedded document to avoid the perpetual
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need to keep the document up to date with the source file. Specific
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items that are important to the description of the publicly available aspects
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of the component, class, or interface include:<br>
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<ul>
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<li>entry-point semantics: what does the method do, or what does the data
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member mean? Is the universe of expected clients limited or open (e.g.. who
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can call it)?<br>
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</li>
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<li>preconditions: what are the legal states for the instance to be in
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before the entry point is called? what are the legal values for the arguments?
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what are the required states for the objects or components used in the entry-point?</li>
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<li>postconditions: what is guaranteed when the entry-point is returned
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from? what return values are legal? what is the status of the output arguments
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for various return states?</li>
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<li>special performance characteristics: if there are special concerns
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about performance of the method, explain them. for example, is the method
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O(n^2)? Is there considerable memory required? Is the method recursive?</li>
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</ul>
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Beyond the public interfaces, the private and protected methods need to
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be documented as well. For protected methods and members, the expectations
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of the subclasses must be made clear (e.g.. should the subclass call the
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base class method? if so, when?) As with the public methods, the semantics,
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preconditions, postconditions, and special performance considerations should
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be described. Again, this may be by direct inclusion of the source code files
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where appropriate.<br>
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<br>
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<h4>Algorithms</h4>
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There is often a need to document specific algorithms used in methods and
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functions. Generally, it is not a good idea to include this sort of
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information in the source files, so they must be described fully in the detailed
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design document. The extent of this information varies wildly from one
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design to another. Be sure to include an Algorithms section to the
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document when there are interesting or critical algorithms that the classes
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or components employ. Spell out the algorithms in as much detail as
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possible using pseudo-code or diagrams. Ideally, it should be possible to
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implement the algorithm from the information in the design.<br>
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<br>
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<br>
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Algorithms that involve several different components or object instances
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require special attention. These algorithms tend to be more complex and more
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difficult to completely specify. Start out by referring to the related
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use cases in the high level design, and then drill down into the responsibilities
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and requirements of the individual instances involved. Here, diagrams
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and pseudo-code are indispensable in communicating how the algorithm is carried
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out across the system.<br>
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<h4></h4>
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<h4> Tech Notes</h4>
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The end of the detailed design document should contain a list of links to
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Tech Notes. These will vary in depth and scope, but generally they provide
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information geared toward helping developers work on the system. Tech
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Notes might contain information about how code has been modified, how
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a new feature was added, how to debug a certain class of problem, how to
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use built-in debugging r logging facilities, or how to maintain or extend
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unit tests. The Tech Notes should be stored in a publibly accessable
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location, as a comment or attachment in a bugzilla bug, for example. The
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text that holds the link should be descriptive of what the Tech Note addresses.<br>
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<br>
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</body>
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</html>
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