What are the virtues of using XML comments in .NET?

Posted by Michal Czardybon on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Michal Czardybon
Published on 2010-04-06T12:55:36Z Indexed on 2010/04/06 13:03 UTC
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I can't understand the virtues of using XML comments. I know they can be converted into nice documentation external to the code, but the same can be achieved with the much more concise DOxygen syntax. In my opinion the XML comments are wrong, because:

  1. They obfuscate the comments and the code in general. (They are more difficult to read by humans).
  2. Less code can be viewed on a single screen, because "summary" and "/summary" take additional lines.
  3. They suggest that all method parameters have to be commented, whereas 90% of them are obvious and SHOULD be left not commented.

The only problem I have with this is that my point of view seems to be in minority. Why?

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