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Regarding the part where you say "document everything". I'm assuming you come from a mid-sized company standpoint where there is more than 1 person working on t
by whatthefunk 15y ago
Regarding the part where you say "document everything". I'm assuming you come from a mid-sized company standpoint where there is more than 1 person working on the app. I might be wrong but I think documenting everything from the start is counterproductive.
- technoweenie 15y agoGitHub IS a mid-sized company with more than 1 person working on the app.
- crymer11 15y agoCurious as to why you think documenting everything from the start is counterproductive. Are you opposed to documenting everything or documenting from the start, and why? I mean, I hate writing documentation, but as someone who has had to come back to code I've written months prior (and I was the only one to work on the project), let alone code someone else wrote, I'm incredibly grateful when I look at old code that's actually documented. Plus I feel that writing a couple lines of documentation helps me figure out exactly what I want the code to do.
- whatthefunk 15y agoTrue. I have been in that situation too. Although I also have some cases wherein I thought prototyping something up to a point to prove it's worth is not subject to "document everything." I guess my question now is, is it better to do it from the very beginning knowing this fact?
- crymer11 15y agoSince I think accurate, up-to-date documentation is as important as existent documentation, I'm inclined to believe that documenting everything doesn't have to be started at the beginning, but I know the longer I put it off, the less likely I am to actually write it. I've been trying to document my code as soon as I have a good idea of how the function, method, etc. is going to work, which sometimes is before I write any code, sometimes after I'm finished, but usually as I'm writing it.
- JonWood 15y agoIf all goes well, you'll be a mid-sized company at some point. I say that from painful experience - we're about to hire our second developer at work, and I'm not looking forward to the time it's going to take to document all those little edge cases that I know about, but they won't.
- johnkchow 15y agoIt really depends on what your end goal is. Building a quick prototype doesn't need documentation, but building a long-lasting app that's maintainable and scales well with a growing dev team, documentation is extremely important.