Three Levels of Software Project Closeout Documentation

I find that authoring documentation is best done at the end of a project. Writing it too early means it needs to be re-written as things change. Unfortunately, life happens. On many projects, almost no time is available for documentation at the project’s end. This may seem irresponsible, but it’s the tradeoff teams and clients […]

Four Tips for Dealing with Poorly Documented Libraries

Every developer has had to deal with the struggle of sifting through documentation that is incomplete, incoherent, outdated, or simply non-existent. Whether it’s libraries, frameworks, or platforms, the presence of good documentation can mean the difference between success and failure. The absence of good documentation is a serious enough downside to justify avoiding a certain […]

Using Cookbook Documentation to Pass on Knowledge

Documentation is hard. Like writing code, it is a delicate balancing act of packing information into a format that is both very dense and very readable. Going too far in either direction severely limits its usefulness. While ramping down a client project recently, I was asked to provide documentation and guides for the JavaScript application […]

Sticky Documentation, Part 2: Source Control History as Documentation

Last week, I introduced a concept I’m calling “sticky documentation” and reviewed a few ways that we can make the most of the “stickiest” documentation we have: the code. Today, I’d like to talk about another form of “sticky” documentation: source control history.

Framework Docs Are a First-Class Citizen

Documentation is a crucial part of any good API or framework. Despite this importance, it often gets neglected and treated as an afterthought. I recently asked another developer how he always managed to put together such well-thought-out and complete documentation. His response was: “Documentation Driven Design (DDD): if your API feels clunky to document, it’s […]

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documentation

Three Levels of Software Project Closeout Documentation

Four Tips for Dealing with Poorly Documented Libraries

Using Cookbook Documentation to Pass on Knowledge

Sticky Documentation, Part 2: Source Control History as Documentation

Framework Docs Are a First-Class Citizen