Regarding the part where you say "document everything". I'm assuming you come from a mid-sized company standpoint where there is more than 1 person working on the app. I might be wrong but I think documenting everything from the start is counterproductive.
Curious as to why you think documenting everything from the start is counterproductive. Are you opposed to documenting everything or documenting from the start, and why?
I mean, I hate writing documentation, but as someone who has had to come back to code I've written months prior (and I was the only one to work on the project), let alone code someone else wrote, I'm incredibly grateful when I look at old code that's actually documented. Plus I feel that writing a couple lines of documentation helps me figure out exactly what I want the code to do.
True. I have been in that situation too. Although I also have some cases wherein I thought prototyping something up to a point to prove it's worth is not subject to "document everything." I guess my question now is, is it better to do it from the very beginning knowing this fact?
Since I think accurate, up-to-date documentation is as important as existent documentation, I'm inclined to believe that documenting everything doesn't have to be started at the beginning, but I know the longer I put it off, the less likely I am to actually write it. I've been trying to document my code as soon as I have a good idea of how the function, method, etc. is going to work, which sometimes is before I write any code, sometimes after I'm finished, but usually as I'm writing it.
If all goes well, you'll be a mid-sized company at some point. I say that from painful experience - we're about to hire our second developer at work, and I'm not looking forward to the time it's going to take to document all those little edge cases that I know about, but they won't.
It really depends on what your end goal is. Building a quick prototype doesn't need documentation, but building a long-lasting app that's maintainable and scales well with a growing dev team, documentation is extremely important.
Comments
Regarding the part where you say "document everything". I'm assuming you come from a mid-sized company standpoint where there is more than 1 person working on the app. I might be wrong but I think documenting everything from the start is counterproductive.
Curious as to why you think documenting everything from the start is counterproductive. Are you opposed to documenting everything or documenting from the start, and why?
I mean, I hate writing documentation, but as someone who has had to come back to code I've written months prior (and I was the only one to work on the project), let alone code someone else wrote, I'm incredibly grateful when I look at old code that's actually documented. Plus I feel that writing a couple lines of documentation helps me figure out exactly what I want the code to do.
True. I have been in that situation too. Although I also have some cases wherein I thought prototyping something up to a point to prove it's worth is not subject to "document everything." I guess my question now is, is it better to do it from the very beginning knowing this fact?
Since I think accurate, up-to-date documentation is as important as existent documentation, I'm inclined to believe that documenting everything doesn't have to be started at the beginning, but I know the longer I put it off, the less likely I am to actually write it. I've been trying to document my code as soon as I have a good idea of how the function, method, etc. is going to work, which sometimes is before I write any code, sometimes after I'm finished, but usually as I'm writing it.
GitHub IS a mid-sized company with more than 1 person working on the app.
If all goes well, you'll be a mid-sized company at some point. I say that from painful experience - we're about to hire our second developer at work, and I'm not looking forward to the time it's going to take to document all those little edge cases that I know about, but they won't.
It really depends on what your end goal is. Building a quick prototype doesn't need documentation, but building a long-lasting app that's maintainable and scales well with a growing dev team, documentation is extremely important.