Making Documentation Matter
I was two days into a new job when I came across something many developers can relate to: a cryptic error message upon installation. I did what many people do and Googled the error message. I was delighted to find a StackOverflow question with the same error… until I realized that there were no solutions in response, and the question had been asked by one of my new coworkers! I walked up to him and asked him about it in person. But it made me wonder — wouldn’t it be better if these answers were written out in documentation somewhere?
Every question is an opportunity to learn, teach, and write documentation.
Whether it’s for installation bugs or constantly updated open source libraries, asking developers to take the time to document how to use them properly can often be met with resistance. It’s understandable; building documentation time into a busy sprint can be difficult. But it’s not impossible, and as we’ve discovered here at Reaction Commerce, it’s essential.
At Reaction, we’ve taken concrete steps to embed a culture of documentation across the engineering teams. And we do not have a single full-time, dedicated technical writer on staff, so everyone takes part in the process. How did we get to this point? It’s been an ever-evolving effort from our entire team.
Originally published at blog.reactioncommerce.com on October 10, 2018.
