Why to Write Documentation Documentation effectively connects humans and machines. Why writing documentation: For you You will be using your code in 6 months You want people to use your code and give you credit You want to learn self-determination Others would be encouraged to contribute to your code For others: Others can easily use your code and build upon it For science: Advance the science Encourage open science Allow reproducibility and transparency.
Document your code Apply coding conventions, such as file organization, comments, naming conventions, programming practices, etc.
Include information for contributors Include citation information Include licensing information Link to your e-mail address at the end List all the version of the files along with the major edits you did in each version An important tip: Naming files should be descriptive and consistent! Resources How to maintain an open source project. Instead of knowledge bases, small teams may rely exclusively on their senior members to be sources of knowledge and to convey important information to their team when a question arises.
Rather than a dedicated communication platform, companies may turn to mass-emails and slack messages that are simply deleted, overlooked or forgotten over time. In projects, locally-stored information may cause information silos and duplicated content, rather than a transparent, easily-accessible account of work. If the opposite to documentation is no documentation at all , the following questions would eventually need to be considered.
As such, there is only one question left to answer: which online documentation tool is right for me? As we can see from some of the examples listed above, the results of having a poorly-structured system of documentation and no documentation system at all are exactly the same. This means two things: not only is a modern, integrated documentation software an absolute necessity for most companies, it needs to be implemented across the entire team at the same time.
We would shorten this to three key terms:. With this in mind, what exactly are the things you should be looking out for when it comes to tool selection? Well, much of the answer depends on who is using the software, and indeed for what.
The ways in which people use online documentation depends on what the organization does, and their own role within it. However, the following requirements are relevant to almost every company. As your company grows, it will accumulate a wealth of information.
By documenting it online, this know-how can benefit everyone, which in turn opens a wide range of opportunities to the company itself. Online documentation tools can boost productivity, with regular updates communicated through the tool.
This, in turn, empowers teams to make faster, better-informed decisions. Onboarding is the time before a new employee reaches full productivity. Companies can shorten this period by giving new hires full access to company information, getting them up to speed faster and minimizing repetitive questions. This not only means that new hires are trained with the latest information and receive consistent guidance, but reduces the workload for trainers and mentors too.
When an experienced employee leaves, any undocumented information they possess leaves with them. By making sure that important information is always available via a centralized online documentation software, you can help both existing and future employees. Having considered the importance of documentation and indeed the requirements for a good online documentation software, we came up with MeisterNote.
Our all-new collaborative documentation tool for teams is the answer to many of the problems posed by the current landscape of productivity tools available on the market today. Visit our features page to discover exactly what MeisterNote can do for you! Discover how to get the most out of MeisterNote for project documentation on our homepage.
MeisterNote has tons of other features that make it a great aid for meeting management. Join the O'Reilly online learning platform. Get a free trial today and find answers on the fly, or master something new and useful.
In the second scenario, meet Harrison. As he attempts to integrate it with his codebase he discovers that parts of the API seem to be glossed over in the documentation or even undocumented.
In the end, he walks away from the project in favor of another solution. These problems were not primarily caused by low-quality code, but rather by poor documentation. The answer, I believe, is that like good code, good documentation is difficult and time consuming to write. The most important rule of good documentation is for it to be as inviting as possible. This means that we should aim to write it in the clearest terms possible without skipping over any steps. We should avoid making assumptions about what our users may know.
Though this may result in more verbose documentation, it is ultimately simpler, as there is less guesswork involved for developers with all levels of experience. Documentation should aim to be comprehensive. This means that all aspects of the project are documented.
Undocumented features or exceptions can lead to frustration and become a time suck as users and other developers are forced to read through code to find the answers they need.
0コメント