Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by teddyuk 2307 days ago
The way I like to think about a well documented system is:

- unit tests show how well the developer understood the requirements at the time they wrote the code - git commit history shows who and when something changed (probably assuming history not rewritten :) ) - git history can be more informative, if and it is a big if, the developers write enough information and not just “changed code” type comments - in-line comments are for “why” - explaining things that look odd or go against standards or best practices, or “I’m doing this now like this, when x is available use that” - notes to help you and others - wiki is for higher level “why” to help people understand the code, where there is a lot of complexity I really like the idea of a “book of the xx” like the book of the runtime here: https://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheBookOfTheRuntimeTheInterna...