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The Grand Unified Theory of Documentation (AKA: Your project needs all 4 types or you have bad documentation) (documentation.divio.com)

submitted 1 year ago by spartanatreyu to c/programming

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The mistake most devs make when trying to document their project is that they only make one (maybe two) types of documentation based on a readme template and/or what their mental model of a newcomer needs.

Devs need to be actively taught that:

Good documentation isn't one thing, it's four. To have good documentation, you need all four distinct types of documentation.
What the four types of documentation are (this is discussed in the link)

If you don't have all four types of documentation, you have bad documentation.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I assume with "close" they meant that documentation should be located right there at the code it is documenting. Think Java doc comments (heredoc) or how in Golang you put comments above a function definition which is then automatically turned into documentation.

If documentation is located in an entirely different file, it's easy to modify code and forget to update the corresponding documentation.