senchalabs/jsduck — Issue #137: Don't treat @private, @ignore & @hide the same
Author: nene
Created: 2012-02-16 09:33:28+00:00
State: open

Until now I have treated @private, @ignore, and @hide exactly the
same. Initially when looking at ExtJS 3.x code it seemed to me that
these tags were used somewhat randomly to do exactly the same thing.
When private stuff wasn't included to docs, this didn't make much of a
difference. But that's no more the case.

I grepped through ExtJS 3/4 and Touch 1/2 sources to see how the tags are used.

Thankfully the use of @hide is almost exclusively: to hide a member of parent class. Nice.

The use of @ignore is more vague, sometimes it's used where @private
would be perfectly suitable, other times it's used where @hide is
meant, often it's used on classes (sometimes side-by-side with
@private). The good thing is that it's not used very much (less than
@hide and much less than @private).

This lack of distinction between these three tags has bothered me
since beginning. I guess now it's a good opportunity to set things
straight.