Documentation aaaaarrrrgggggg

[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();
}
}

[BrainiacV]

I really enjoyed it. One case in particular, I had written what I called the "Custom Output Processor" for our database product. I had implemented an RPN style calculator so you could do math before displaying the results on the report. It also had commands for copying fields to the report. It was driven by a table of opcodes and arguments that were interpreted by the code. I had user opcodes like RCL, STO, PRT. I was writing the next generation and wanted to make the processing orthogonal and was merrily adding new opcodes like INP, WRT, etc., and the documentor threw up her hands and declared it unteachable. That caused me to pause and recognize she was correct. I redesigned it replacing all the different user opcodes with MOV and the arguments determined the internal opcode for processing. I was particularly pleased because I made it code compatible with the earlier version. You may have written your processing in the earlier version with RCL and STO, but when you opened them in the newer version, you'd see them converted to MOV with the arguments indicating if you were reading a field, register, or an output field. It really helped having a "non-technical" person commenting on what you were creating. (BTW the database was The Data Factory published by Micro Lab, Inc for the Apple II)

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]

BrainiacV wrote:

It really helped having a "non-technical" person commenting on what you were creating.

Sounds useful.

BrainiacV wrote:

The Data Factory

Haven't heard of it.

BrainiacV wrote:

Micro Lab, Inc

Haven't heard of it...

BrainiacV wrote:

Apple II

Haven... Oh wait, I know Apple! The Apple II was released about ten years before I was even born (not to make you feel old or anything, I guess I'm just young) ;)

My blog[^]

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

[BrainiacV]

No offense taken. It was a long time ago, in a ... (wait, are you too young to recognize the reference? :laugh: ) Beseech the God Google for "The Data Factory" "Micro Lab" and you'll find reviews. It was an old flatfile database program. And no, I'm not Bill Passauer, I was hired to clean up his, uh, code and myself and another ended up rewriting it completely. But that's another story.

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]

BrainiacV wrote:

It was a long time ago, in a ...

I believe that movie came out in the same year as the Apple II ('77) and it's one of my favourite movies ever :D So I guess there goes my excuse ;p

BrainiacV wrote:

Beseech the God Google for "The Data Factory" "Micro Lab" and you'll find reviews.

I won't actually :wtf:

My blog[^]

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