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Hot take: The docs are an important part of the product. If you notice that the docs are bad, the product is bad. Docs are hard and thankless, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ th

Hot take: The docs are an important part of the product. If you notice that the docs are bad, the product is bad. Docs are hard and thankless, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ them's the breaks.

twodave 4y ago
I'd even take this hot take up a few more degrees and say the docs quality not only represents the product quality, but also validates it. In other words, you can't know whether your product has a chance of being good unless you're _able_ to write good docs for it.
speed_spread 4y ago
Even hotter take, you can have a well documented shit product and it'll be better in a lot of cases than a quality product with no docs.
- WesternWind 4y ago
  This is true. Docs, re not necessarily considered important features of the product itself but they make a huge difference. Other things that I pay attention to are built-in integrations with other tools, the ability to import and export data, familiarity to users, similarity to existing tools, tutorials that leave users confident, and documentation with examples of use cases are all similar factors.
- twodave 4y ago
  And if your project is open source and the docs are clear and show good vision, you might even attract folks to come fix your broke-ass code :D
- manachar 4y ago
  That's pretty much the space Wordpress thrives in, isn't it? How shit the product is for Wordpress is a matter of debate, but the documentation and ecosystem around it is robust enough to make it fairly easy to hack and use/abuse to do what you want it to.
mxuribe 4y ago
> ...If you notice that the docs are bad, the product is bad... This right here is so correct! Given the option of 2 (or more) products/services, in my mind, the one with the best documentaiton wins...because it usually means it is the option that is more easy to implement...or at least i can research how to make it the esier option to implement, etc. Good docs for the win!

Hot take: The docs are an important part of the product. If you notice that the docs are bad, the product is bad. Docs are hard and thankless, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ them's the breaks.

twodave 4y ago

I'd even take this hot take up a few more degrees and say the docs quality not only represents the product quality, but also validates it. In other words, you can't know whether your product has a chance of being good unless you're _able_ to write good docs for it.

speed_spread 4y ago

Even hotter take, you can have a well documented shit product and it'll be better in a lot of cases than a quality product with no docs.

WesternWind 4y ago
This is true. Docs, re not necessarily considered important features of the product itself but they make a huge difference. Other things that I pay attention to are built-in integrations with other tools, the ability to import and export data, familiarity to users, similarity to existing tools, tutorials that leave users confident, and documentation with examples of use cases are all similar factors.
twodave 4y ago
And if your project is open source and the docs are clear and show good vision, you might even attract folks to come fix your broke-ass code :D
manachar 4y ago
That's pretty much the space Wordpress thrives in, isn't it? How shit the product is for Wordpress is a matter of debate, but the documentation and ecosystem around it is robust enough to make it fairly easy to hack and use/abuse to do what you want it to.

mxuribe 4y ago

> ...If you notice that the docs are bad, the product is bad... This right here is so correct! Given the option of 2 (or more) products/services, in my mind, the one with the best documentaiton wins...because it usually means it is the option that is more easy to implement...or at least i can research how to make it the esier option to implement, etc. Good docs for the win!