Internal documentation. Its one of the most frequent casualties in software development.

Its brainless to see why. For most businesses , time is funds , and they frequently find themselves scrambling to release a item. It might therefore be tempting to save instant by cutting cornersby shortening or eliminating development stages that appear to slow down the coding process.

Many programmers scoff at the importance of this documentation. I understand what Im doing! they say. Time is short, and writing about my work will only slow things down. Besides, if something goes wrong, I know that I can fix it. This is a terribly na and short-sighted approach. Such a cavalier attitude toward documentation could be disastrous to a companys future.

It doesnt help that programmers and engineers are notorious for having lackluster communication skills. It doesnt help that documentation is a task that they seldom enjoy. The result is commonly an intractable messutter software design chaos.

A na programmer may think, for example, that in-code comments are unnecessary. I remember one engineer who laughed out loud when he viewed me inserting comments into my code. Look at this guy! he chortled. What a waste of measure ! Admittedly, few programmers would carry this attitude to such an extreme; however, such perspectives are still implicit to a grand many software developers.

Its not just in-code comments that are important. In general, one should also document general software architectures, detailed designs, flows of logic, installation instructions, and so forth. The exact requirements will naturally vary depending on ones distingguished situation, but as a rule, these are helpful benchmarks to strive for. The act of writing these documents might be tremendously helpful in guiding ones develope process, and it might provide helpful tools for design reviews and peer feedback. In addition, the developers desire should be to ensure that future programmers may figure out how it works without a efficient deal of hand-wringing or gnashing of teeth.

Unfortunately, many employees take the opposite viewpoint, and purposely scrimp on the documentation. Often, they do this to ensure job security for themselvesand sometimes, this tactic works. By scrimping on documentation, however, he might wind up jeopardizing the companys long-term success. Besides, an astute employer knows that a programmer who documents well is assessment of value far more than someone who holds his cards close to his vest. The latter can seem valuable in the short term, but ultimately, hes a long-term liability.