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Writing good documentation

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Ryan Tomayko

Posts: 408
Nickname: rtomayko
Registered: Nov, 2004

Ryan Tomayko is an instance of a human being...
Writing good documentation Posted: Nov 11, 2009 5:47 PM
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From Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s recent piece on documenting open source projects:

It’s really tempting to use an auto-documentation tool like Javadoc or RDoc for reference material.

Don’t.

Auto-generated documentation is almost worthless. At best it’s a slightly improved version of simply browsing through the source, but most of the time it’s easier just to read the source than to navigate the bullshit that these autodoc tools produce. About the only thing auto-generated documentation is good for is filling printed pages when contracts dictate delivery of a certain number of pages of documentation. I feel a particularly deep form of rage every time I click on a “documentation” link and see auto-generated documentation.

Hate that shit.

You know what I want? Man pages. For everything. Wouldn’t it be cool if you didn’t have to write roff?

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