01-27-2023, 10:54 AM
(01-25-2023, 10:33 AM)TDarcos Wrote: Stop. The biggest problem in software development in my opinion is the failure to document work. There are literally millions of dollars of work - and I don't mean Zimbabwe dollars! - that has had to be thrown away or done over because nobody knows how to use it or what it does.
This is the main reason why I reject VLC Media Player on impulse. Not even a short HTML which is like the NomadBSD "Handbook" going through things briefly. Dresses up the program icon like Santa's helper on December instead which just pissed me off!
The eagerness to show off coding expertise to land a job with a reputational corporation leaves no time for documentation. I've seen it in a program some guy wrote which was a music utility. I went to compliment him on a different forum but he was somewhat indifferent. I could have called him out instead for offering absolutely no documentation about how to use the features of his program that weren't obvious.
Sadly this is common which is helping to judge the whole Linux world. The FreeBSD community is doomed to remain small because they are very willing to talk about their stuff... I hope I'm flatly wrong here about "doomed". There's the example that Slackware provides -- good documentation in text files but almost all of it is outdated by at least 15-20 years. (IE. still assumes software comes in CD/DVD.)
OTOH there are people in which English isn't their first language but take an effort to explain what goes on with software they design. Among the ones that should be hailed are KX77FREE and the author of GSequencer (although that last-named software's documentation could go a bit further because I've found that program bewildering to use).