Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Documentation has Little Value - Read the Code

Again, I got this from Jeff Atwood HERE. But I feel so strongly about this that I'm plagiarizing  and not just linking to his page...

"... writing for people is way harder than writing for machines, the documentation will continue to suck for the forseeable future. There's very little you can do about it.
Except for one thing... You can learn to read the source.

No matter what the documentation says, the source code is the ultimate truth, the best and most definitive and up-to-date documentation you're likely to find. This will be true forever, so the sooner you come to terms with this, the better off you'll be as a software developer.

Nobody reads other people's code for fun. But we must read other people's code because we have to understand it to get things done. So don't be afraid to read the source.