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Documentation is one place where humans should have input. If an LLM can generate documentation, why would I want you to generate it when I can do so myself (pr
by saagarjha 11mo ago
Documentation is one place where humans should have input. If an LLM can generate documentation, why would I want you to generate it when I can do so myself (probably with a better, newer model)?
- simonw 11mo agoI definitely want documentation that a project expert has reviewed. I've found LLMs are fantastic at writing documentation about how something works, but they have a nasty tendency to take guesses at WHY - you'll get occasional sentences like "This improves the efficiency of the system". I don't want invented rationales for changes, I want to know the actual reason a developer decided that the code should work that way.
- saagarjha 11mo agoExactly. Often this information is not actually present in the code itself which is exactly why I would want documentation in the first place, given that I can always read the code myself if needed.
- ACCount37 11mo agoThat's great if those humans are around to have that input. Not so much when you have a lot of code from 6 years ago, built around an obscure SDK, and you have to figure out how it works, and the documentation is both incredibly sparse and in Chinese.
- saagarjha 11mo agoIf you want to have an LLM piece together and translate documentation, this seems fairly reasonable
- amelius 11mo agoBecause it takes time and effort to write documentation. If people __can__ actually read undocumented code with the help of LLMs, why do you need human-written documentation really?
- baq 11mo agoDocs are a form of error correcting coding for code. Docs+code allows you to spot discrepancies and ask which one is the intended behavior.
- gr4vityWall 11mo agoIt doesn't need to be written by a human only, but I think generating it once and distributing it with source code is more efficient. Developers can correct errors in the generated documentation, which then can be used by humans and LLMs.
- saagarjha 11mo agoI can read code without the help of LLMs, too. Human documentation tells me why the code was written.