Documentation aaaaarrrrgggggg

[Mike Hankey]

I agree documentation tools are pretty much non existent, pity would really help poor souls like me. I think my biggest problem is my grasp of the English language. One tends to fear what one does not understand. You, Sasha, Nish and others have a writing style that I envy. I excel in other areas; trivia, kick the can, distance spitting, etc.. :)

New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.0 There's a fine line between crazy and free spirited and it's usually a prescription. I'm currently unsupervised, I know it freaks me out too but the possibilities are endless.

[glennPattonPub]

Self Documenting Code... I always thought it was a buzz word way to get out of using comments/documentation, I have hardware projects to take over that were self documenting apart from the input, power amp it wasn't! same with code 'Oh I see what is being done, but why?' is a common in my experience! :wtf:

[Mike Hankey]

I'm finding that with hardware I need to document also but in a different way; I keep notes, schematics, images of the final product, etc. then when I go back some time later it is a lot easier to remember seeing that I have the CRS syndrome.

New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.0 There's a fine line between crazy and free spirited and it's usually a prescription. I'm currently unsupervised, I know it freaks me out too but the possibilities are endless.

[RedDk]

You don't get paid enough to document code. I'm looking at very sparse data array of informative statistics about contacts from my landlord warning me of imminent water shut offs. I see four notices over a years' time, and only two of them in which the water was indeed shut off. How is this data? It's uninteresting PLUS it's only pseudo valuable in that it contains only partial information about what it's entitled to contain. Perhaps if the water really did get shut off, I'd be happier about being notified.

[Mike Hankey]

RedDk wrote:

You don't get paid enough to document code.

I don't get paid anything for writing code, I do it for the fun of it.

New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.0 There's a fine line between crazy and free spirited and it's usually a prescription. I'm currently unsupervised, I know it freaks me out too but the possibilities are endless.

[Lost User]

Use examples. Everyone understands and example

PooperPig - Coming Soon

[Mycroft Holmes]

I have enjoyed writing doco precisely once in my entire life, in the early 90s I got paid approx $5k to build an app. In the late 90s they wanted to rewrite it into Delphi, when I refused they asked me to write the technical spec so their coders could work from it, I charged $20k and laughed all the way to the bank. It is the only time I think I have actually done a good job of doco, they got their moneys worth.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH

[Slacker007]

Mike Hankey wrote:

Why is it that we as programmers hate to document?

I wonder if there is a correlation between the dislike for wanting to write documentation and writing research papers. I don't care for writing documentation and I never cared much for writing research papers in college. I had to do it, but I didn't like it. Thus, my hypothesis is, if you like writing in general, you will not mind writing documentation. :-D

[Member 10707677]

When I first started in the industry, the standard was that documentation was to be completed before the first line of code. Some refer to that method as the waterfall method. Today, you seldom see documentation; or, what little there is seldom reflects the product for which it is written. As a basic rule of thumb, write your documentation for an eight-year-old. (I used to have my daughter do the final edit of my documentation until she was eleven.)

[Oshtri Deka]

Tragic and true.

Mislim, dakle jeo sam.

[Lost User]

Early on I spent a great deal of time on documentation only to have it never referenced. I don't mind doing training materials because they are used, but developer docs are a waste of time because devs don't look at it.

[PhilLenoir]

I've noticed that Mike. ;P

Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.

[PhilLenoir]

The Documentors - weren't that nasties in Harry Potter?

Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.

[PhilLenoir]

Quote:

kick the can, distance spitting

Ow! you got me TWICE

Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.

[Sander Rossel]

Almost :laugh:

My blog[^]

public class SanderRossel : Lazy<Person>
{
public void DoWork()
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
}

[PIEBALDconsult]

Mike Hankey wrote:

I don't get paid anything for writing code, I do it for the fun of it.

Right, they pay me to do it for them. Although, most of what they have me doing is SSIS and that's not code. :sigh: There has been some coding fun this week as I have been working with the TFS API.

[PIEBALDconsult]

Member 10707677 wrote:

documentation was to be completed before the first line of code

That's just a specification. I've seen a few of those, read them, said "OK here's a better way to do that", and wrote something that actually made sense instead. Where I am now I just keep saying "documentation is out of date as soon as it's published".

[StatementTerminator]

For one thing, managers generally don't factor documentation time into coding deadlines, so if you spend time documenting it can look like you aren't getting your "real" work done fast enough. But the larger problem is keeping it up-to-date. You may have time to do the initial documentation, but are you going to have time to update it with every change? What about when another team member ninja-edits the code, are you going to regularly check and make sure the documentation still matches the code? I used to try very hard to have good documentation, but I found it to be hopeless. You end up with outdated documentation, which is often worse than no documentation at all. I don't buy the "code should document itself" argument, but for practical purposes that's where we're at, even if you have documentation you still have to go through the code and make sure the documentation isn't lying to you. Edit: There's one time when documentation should be mandatory: when you are leaving a job. You likely aren't going to be needed to meet a coding deadline during your last two weeks, so spend that time documenting the systems you've been responsible for so the next person has something to go by when they pick up those systems. It's good karma, and that's when documentation is really needed and will get read.

[BrainiacV]

Sander Rossel wrote:

I hate documenting my code

One company I worked for, we had documentors that created the documentation in parallel with us. We'd occasionally upset the documentors when we found we had to change something, but we tried to keep it to a minimum. That worked fairly well. Particularly since English was no longer the primary language for the programmers.

Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.

[Sander Rossel]

Sounds a bit like pair programming, but with one doing documentation. That might actually work...

My blog[^]

public class SanderRossel : Lazy<Person>
{
public void DoWork()
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
}