I'm working on a new framework/API for a greenfield application. One of the challenges my boss propositioned the team with was coding the framework/API to aid future developers in being able to navigate the code and discover how to code against the framework in the context of the business. While we are fortunate based on the tooling around the .NET stack to have things like Intellisense, I was wondering if there was anything aside from tried and true coding standards that would help a new dev find their way around a framework? Can the code be structured in such a way as to "self-document?"
Use inline XML comments, and generate online documentation off them programmatically with SandCastle. It's not "self-documenting", but it's about as low-friction as you can get for creating documentation.
You can enforce this (and other good stuff) using StyleCop. If you're using Resharper, you can even enforce this in realtime with the StyleCop for Resharper plugin.