How to access actual documentation for System.Composition

[kennethk-corp]

I'm at a loss as to how to access the actual documentation for things like System.Composition. The docs aren't really docs. They're just the API reference.
Googling around doesn't work. You might find an old Blog post about MEF, and end up system.componentmodel instead.

Short of reading the source code, is there any place to go? Even the developer specs may be helpful, but I'm not sure where those are, either.

I feel like I must be doing something wrong. There's a ton of Microsoft Nuget packages that are have the least amount of documentation of any framework libraries or frameworks I've seen on the Internet, and I realize that I must be doing something wrong with how I'm attempting to search for these things.

Any can shed light on this? Here's a concrete example. This class PartConventionBuilder in System.Composition.Convention is "documented" here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.composition.convention.partconventionbuilder
What should be my next step in attempting to understand how, where and when this API is meant to be used.

In comparison, I can look up something like CreateIoCompletionPort and encounter an entirely different quality level of documentation for a very old API function.

Please help a brother out. I'm not trying to be critical. Just seeking to understand how to navigate all this.

[huoyaoyuan]

There are three versions of MEF:

• MEF1 (System.ComponentModel.Composition)
• MEF2 (System.Composition)
• vs-mef (Microsoft.VisualStudio.Composition), https://github.com/microsoft/vs-mef/tree/main

There isn't really dedicated documentation for MEF2. You can refer to the documentation and samples for other versions:

• https://learn.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/mef/
• https://github.com/MicrosoftArchive/mef/blob/master/Wiki/Home.md

[kennethk-corp]

Thank you for your response.

I'm wondering if anyone knows where is the official documentation for System.Composition.Convention ?

learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.composition.convention
is not sufficient.
It only has the API documentation without any explanation of what that API does and how to use it.

I see there's documentation that's been archived here:
https://github.com/microsoftarchive/mef/tree/master/Wiki

For example, if I want to know how to use the ConventionBuilder class, I have to look at markdown documents in archived repositories, even though the API is currently supported by Microsoft.

Example:
https://github.com/microsoftarchive/mef/blob/0baeef12fbb426df17223f4c7a1e487a4ca45b1f/Wiki/What%20is%20Microsoft.Composition_.md

Is this correct?
Or is there some other more standard place where this can be found.

[huoyaoyuan]

I'm not aware of more documentation. @dotnet/area-system-composition do you have more information?