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Ask HN: What's the best documentation you've ever read?
- altschuler 8y agoI learned a lot from the SQLite documentation. It's not only very thorough, but it's full of insightful bits of information that is not strictly necessary but which gives a deeper understanding of the engine. It was also the first time I encountered the flow diagram type of syntax explanation which I found to be a fantastic way to grasp the details of each command. Eg https://sqlite.org/lang_createtable.html https://sqlite.org/lang_createtable.html. https://sqlite.org/docs.html https://sqlite.org/docs.html
- rajangdavis 8y agoIMHO Twilio's documentation is pretty nice
- akskos 8y agoGo
- Numberwang 8y agoReally? I thought they were horrible. I gave up on learning the language mainly because of the documentation.
- Theodores 8y agoStack Overflow.
- jolmg 8y agovim, emacs, postgres, zsh, bash, urxvt, systemd, pacman EDIT: It all depends on how you set the bar, though. There are plenty of projects whose entire documentation is a README with a few examples. Also, what's "best", documentation that greatly explains a horrible, unintuitive interface of a program or one that hardly needs to exist because the use of the program is so intuitive, you don't need documentation? Greater effort was spent in the former, but you understand the program better in the latter.
- saluki 8y agoBest docs: Stripe.com Laravel.com
- gremlinsinc 8y agoLaravel by far my favorite framework, but their docs aren't perfect, there's a lot of things I've needed to do, that just aren't in the docs, they're in the API though. Everything in the api, should be covered somewhere in the docs with examples and use cases, imho.
- rmrfrmrf 8y agoThe C Programming Language
- incadenza 8y agoRedux is good given how small the library is. Rust stands out as well
- throwmeaway1532 8y agoI don't see how anyone could like Redux' library. It's up there with Webpack in "dancing around but not getting to the point". If you want to do anything useful with Redux, the Redux docs are pretty terrible. I hate any docs that are written in "step" form rather than "book/info" form. I search for a specific thing I want to learn about and apparently it's skipped over because it's not "a commonly used thing".
- mjw1007 8y agoI'm underwhelmed by the Rust docs. The tutorial is OK-ish, but the reference docs are weak. If I have a specific question about some detail of the language, the answer is very rarely there. Sometimes the answer is written up in the bug-tracking system or an RFC. They don't seem to have a culture where someone making a behaviour change, or a language-definition decision, is expected to update the reference manual at the same time.
- steveklabnik 8y agoPlease file bugs against the reference when you have these kinds of questions, it really helps. > they don’t seem to have a culture We actually do have that as a literal rule [1], but since we’ve started from a place where the reference is incomplete, we can’t block everything on fully filling out every last detail. It’s being actively worked on though! 1: the rule has been slightly relaxed in the last few months for reasons; now a bug must be filed, rather than writing out the literal text. They usually get done fairy shortly after though.
- throwmeaway1532 8y agoThe best docs on the planet are now held by Mozilla on Javascript.
- notaspider 8y agoThe MDN web docs? I agree, they are superb.
- hakanito 8y agoAgreed. I’m referring to it as the Truth
- deadcoder0904 8y agoVue JS docs are the best. I don't think anything beats it :)
- superasn 8y ago100% agree. They are the most comprehensive docs I've ever seen. So many examples, nice clean design and they cover edge cases too. It's the only doc that generally comes before SO in finding solutions for me.
- sametmax 8y agoI always feel like the author is my buddy talking to me. Sometime i have a question, then read one. There is it, the answer. And this applies to the vue API as well. The guy just crafted in so many little things to make real life easiser. The event.once helper for example. Simple, elegant, useful.
- cimmanom 8y agoVue's docs are well written, and more comprehensive than most, but I came across some major gaps during a recent learning project.
- beizhia 8y agoIt's gotta be emacs for me. C-h o, and helm-apropos make it super easy to investigate anything in the system. And the help pages link back to the source code (though this isn't unique to emacs) The online docs aren't bad either.
- croo 8y agoZeroMQ stands out for me. http://zguide.zeromq.org/page:all http://zguide.zeromq.org/page:all
- Buttons840 8y agoYeah. I'm pretty sure I'd benefit from reading those docs even if I never use ZMQ.
- stevesimmons 8y agoDjango, the Python-based web framework, has fantastic docs too: https://docs.djangoproject.com https://docs.djangoproject.com
- devxpy 8y agoAny discussion on documentation is incomplete without mentioning Django https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.0/ https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.0/
- danpalmer 8y agoCame here to say this. The thing I love about Django’s documentation is the layering. From beginner tutorial through to high level overviews of the subsystems, through to detailed usage for the subsystems, through to API level docs, through to the source code - all of it is there, and all linked together well. On top of that, it’s all well written, approachable, full of notes and caveats/warnings where necessary (for the level of the documentation too). I’ve not seen another set of documentation that provides something at each of those layers.
- sametmax 8y agoThe warning and caveat are the best part for me. The django team understands very well the principle of least surprise, which is why old django installs still work, the ecosystem is very well intagrated and updates are not dreaded. It strikes menthat something new like react is in version 16 (and the doc sucks) while django is much older and only reaching v2, with great docs.
- spicyj 8y agoI work on React. We've worked really hard on our docs, so it would be helpful to know what you don't like about them so we can improve.
- danpalmer 8y agoI don't use React much, but from a quick look at your docs now it looks like they are much better than last time I saw them, and I can't find any major points of criticism. I like the fact that you have the separation between getting started/tutorials, main concepts, advanced concepts, and an API reference. The notes/caveats/etc seem reasonable. It would be nice to link to the source in the API reference, and there are a lot of mentions of APIs that could be linked (pretty much any function name in a body of text could be linked I think), but apart from that these docs look great. That said, I haven't had to use them day after day for 6 years like I have with the Django documentation! One thing you might want to consider for the future would be switching between versions of React. Django has a version switcher at the bottom of the screen that lets you jump between versions, shows banners when reading the docs for unreleased/insecure/old versions (in case users are linked to them), and also mentions when APIs were added in recent versions in the text.
- snicky 8y agoI love https://redis.io/documentation https://redis.io/documentation. It has a great UI too.
- sametmax 8y agoIt scaled well too. Redis was a small tool. It's not so small anymore, but the doc is still top notch.
- mjw1007 8y agoThe TeXbook, and the Exim spec. The thing the latter gets right is that, as well as the usual long list of options with an explanation of what their effects are, it also describes in full detail what the program actually does, rather than leaving you to deduce it from the options. So each option is normally described twice: once in an alphabetical list, and once where the operation it affects is described.
- pasbesoin 8y agoI remember the TeXbook, from back when it came out (more or less). One of those books that tells you what's going on, provides a very good summary of its context, and makes you want to read it. More documentation back then seemed to be of higher caliber, than much if not most of what we wade through, today. I think the people writing it had more time and resources for attention to detail. And perhaps more need. There was no generally public Internet for updates and corrections including turning your product from a pain in the ass quasi-brick to something useful. You had to get it right, up front.
- HappyFapMachine 8y agoQT wasn't so bad as far as I remember. But as jolmg pointed out, some projects are just simple readme and that is more than enough. Love those. But the total opposite is also common, a wall of text that is meaningless and in the end, you have to go through the source code to get some answers...
- slavik81 8y agoQt had amazing documentation around Qt 4.5. It's still really well-written—especially the old stuff—but their biggest problem is that they're awful at maintaining websites. The expected lifespan of a link to a page in their documentation is about two years.
- klausjensen 8y agoStripe has the best API documentation, I have seen.
- danpalmer 8y agoI used to think this, but from a recent project with them we found them to be lacking some significant details, and generally fairly shallow. We had to contact support for a lot of clarification, and that took a while with the back and forth.
- jackgolding 8y agoI like plot.ly's documentation - has a good mix of top level examples and specific, deep documentation.
- programmarchy 8y agoThe node-postgres docs are very nice. https://node-postgres.com/ https://node-postgres.com/ Gives you examples right off the bat to get started, is organized well so it's easy to dive deeper, and the author includes some conventions for incorporating the module into your app.
- cellover 8y agoPostgreSQL's documentation to me is a reference. Complex concepts are told in a very simple and concise fashion. There is just the right amount of text for what is told, it does not make you feel dumb and instead invites you to dig deeper in a very welcoming manner.
- mmt 8y agoI even suggest it as a good way to learn about relational databases, in general. The only downside is if the reader is "spoiled" by a particular feature that's documented as standard (such as to comply with one) and subsequently has to work with one that lacks it or implements it less completely.
- manugarri 8y agoIt has to be the scikit-learn documentation (http://scikit-learn.org/ http://scikit-learn.org/). Not only its great in terms of proper code documentations with a ton of examples, but it also explains the theory behind each algorithm. You can literally learn Machine Learning just by reading the docs
- kapauldo 8y agoTwilio docs are great. Mongodb is awful even though I love the platform.
- random42_ 8y agoProbably the Gentoo Linux documentation. Not sure how it looks like today, but back in 2005 when I started using Gentoo it helped me a lot because not only was comprehensive but also deep enough albeit clear.
- amarant 8y agoI really like the elasticsearch docs. They seem to cover everything, it's easy to find what you're looking for, and they contain a lot of detail! the feature where you can switch ES version without leaving the page you're on is a nice touch too :)
- minikomi 8y agoRe-frame for clojurescript. Worth reading even if you're not using cljs but are involved in front-end development. https://github.com/Day8/re-frame/blob/master/docs/README.md https://github.com/Day8/re-frame/blob/master/docs/README.md
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tephra 8y agoI really like the Org mode manual (https://orgmode.org/manual/ https://orgmode.org/manual/)
- Walkman 8y agoPostgreSQL's is very concise, clear, to the point, but still very detailed. Has examples! https://www.postgresql.org/docs/10/static/index.html https://www.postgresql.org/docs/10/static/index.html
- federicodalmaso 8y agoCockroachDB: https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/stable/architecture/overview.html https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/stable/architecture/overv...
- rkachowski 8y agonobody know shoes by _why I would say it's pretty terrible at providing a reference for a new GUI system in ruby, but it's also the most fun I've had reading docs
- sbergjohansen 8y agoI've always admired Agilent's Programmer's Reference for the ESA series electronic spectrum analyzers http://literature.cdn.keysight.com/litweb/pdf/E4401-90507.pdf http://literature.cdn.keysight.com/litweb/pdf/E4401-90507.pd...
- leni536 8y agoI think cppreference.com is very well made. It has both the C++ and C standards in a very accessible form.
- mabynogy 8y agoMDN because it's exhaustive https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/ https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/ Jekyll because it's beautiful and the user can read all the pages at once with the previous/next buttons (at the bottom) https://jekyllrb.com/docs/home/ https://jekyllrb.com/docs/home/ Node.js because they propose a single page version and it makes search easier https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v10.x/docs/api/all.html https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v10.x/docs/api/all.html
- cimmanom 8y agoMDN is spectacular.
- bobosha 8y agostripe - hast the best api docs imho
- neddeadstark 8y agoI would go with python-requests http://docs.python-requests.org/en/master/ http://docs.python-requests.org/en/master/
- yantrams 8y agoMDN, Scikit-learn, Requests, RethinkDB, Django are a few that come to my mind.
- billconan 8y agoQt's http://doc.qt.io/ http://doc.qt.io/
- nortiero 8y agoThe Commodore 64 User Manual. No contest.
- tcpekin 8y agoI use Matlab over Python for scientific computing mainly because the documentation makes everything easier.
- kaycebasques 8y agoTech writer here. I'd be hugely thankful if you included why a given set is the best in your experience!
- WalterGR 8y ago(Off-topic: I'm considering a career change from software engineering to tech writing. I'd love to pick your brain about the field. There's no contact info in your profile, but I'm waltergr@gmail.com. Thanks for the consideration.)
- kaycebasques 8y agoJust saw this. Absolutely. I'll email you. My personal is kayce@basqu.es for anyone else in the same boat.
- haolez 8y agoRacket https://docs.racket-lang.org/ https://docs.racket-lang.org/
- soegaard 8y agoNote that all identifiers in the code examples are links to documentation.
- actionowl 8y agohttps://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/development/index.html https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/development/inde... I found some bugs and I wanted to fix them. I've done a little python in the past but I'm not entirely up to speed on the whole python ecosystem. This documentation was exceptional and allowed me to get my bugs fixed, some unit tests written and PR's merged.
- wizawu 8y agoErlang - https://www.erlang.org/docs https://www.erlang.org/docs The best three entries are * Learn - http://erlang.org/doc/reference_manual/users_guide.html http://erlang.org/doc/reference_manual/users_guide.html * Use - http://erlang.org/doc/search/ http://erlang.org/doc/search/ * Go deep - http://erlang.org/doc/efficiency_guide/users_guide.html http://erlang.org/doc/efficiency_guide/users_guide.html