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Ask HN: How do you document the development process?

by timelinex on 5/26/10, 7:09 AM with 5 comments

Currently, I am working on a project and I am wondering what is the best way to go about documenting it. I am documenting in the code but also I crate design documents. The design documents contains for every class develop: why I wrote that class, how the class was implemented, advantages and disadvantages of the class, discussion about the class, example inputs and example of the class. As you can see the design document would be rather time consuming to produce. The main purpose of the design doc is to keep my supervisor informed, who is a remote location. and also to track the decision that are made over the course of the project.

What I'm looking for is how this process is done in other companies. Also, I'm going about the documentation process correctly?

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

  • by jacquesm on 5/26/10, 8:25 AM

    Put up a local wiki and store that stuff in there. We do this with 'trac', it also has a great ticketing system built in.

    I do technical due diligence for a living and whenever I have to do this at a company that has a wiki with all the documentation in it I'm so happy because it will save me a day or two, and on top of that I know that their developers will have quick access to all that stuff as well.

    Usually I make a point of noting in the final report that the documentation was well organized if this is the case (and the wiki isn't a huge mess, unfortunately that is still a possibility).