Documentation – Why Joe Coder Can’t Write
I'm continually amazed at the lack of documentation that most developers I meet write. They don't think it's necessary for their work - after all, they wrote it. Who else needs to understand it? Who else needs to use it? Well... if they need to use it, they'll come and talk to me and I'll walk them through it and then they'll be OK.
It's an incredible double-standard. If they ask for docs from me for something (and most developers I work with have, from time to time) I give it to them. Why? Because I wrote it. I wrote it for myself, and then built the code based on those docs. I know they didn't write the docs otherwise, they'd give them to me.
No, and I've run into a class of developer that if I don't have docs for a process or procedure ready, they want them as opposed to the "talk through". I have to provide it for them so they can make their process or procedure. But when I ask for it, they think I'm being unreasonable. These people are just lazy, no two ways about it.
But the general mass of developers that don't write docs, or even comment their code so that it's at least able to be followed by someone are the ones that get me. They know the value of the docs, but still they refuse to write them. They know it'd make things a lot easier, but they aren't concerned about making the other guy's life easier... they had it hard, so why make it easier on the guy following them? Selfish, is all I can think of. Unkind as well.
So I'm sitting here realizing that I have very little in common with developers like this. I'll continue to work with them, but it's a waste of my time to expect them to change. Maybe they'll run into someone that gets them to write them, and then see the value in having them. But until that day comes there's nothing I can do to make them see the err of their ways. Sad.