this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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Based Count General Discussion

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Any tips for documenting software or other things in life?

Examples of good or bad docs?

It seems like an overlooked but important topic in software and other things in life (like creating user manuals, etc.)

Thoughts on documentation in general?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

I think having good examples for each feature is really nice

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The golden rule is that all documentation is out of date. Trust but verify etc.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

One thing I've seen a lot is having the version at the top of the page or a outdated mark. Very useful.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

If you're writing, make sure you cover all the commands a user could run with your application. A good example for a command line app is explaining each command, its flags, and what they do. Similar to web apps with API endpoints, or the capabilities of any program with an UI. A good tool is VitePress. Both in documenting a tool and how to use it. Another good example for Developers is how Rust and Go offer documentation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Yeah, it's tough. From my experience, documentation is one of those thigns that you learn as you go, hard to have someone explain it to you.

From my experience I found that powerpoints are a decent way of documenting coding work, especially at a broader level. If you need to get specific you probably just need to start typing walls of text, but if possible that should be avoided.

As for documenting other things in life... well good question. Ikd if the same best practices that go for coding also apply there.