Diagramming vs Textual Documentation

Developers should learn diagramming to improve documentation, facilitate team collaboration, and enhance system design clarity, especially in agile or DevOps environments where visual communication speeds up understanding meets developers should learn and use textual documentation to ensure code maintainability, facilitate collaboration, and reduce onboarding time for new team members. Here's our take.

Diagramming

Nice Pick

Developers should learn diagramming to improve documentation, facilitate team collaboration, and enhance system design clarity, especially in agile or DevOps environments where visual communication speeds up understanding

Pros

• It is crucial for creating architecture diagrams, database schemas, or process flows in projects involving microservices, cloud infrastructure, or data pipelines, helping to identify issues early and align stakeholders
• Related to: uml-diagrams, flowcharts

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

Textual Documentation

Developers should learn and use textual documentation to ensure code maintainability, facilitate collaboration, and reduce onboarding time for new team members

Pros

• It is essential for open-source projects to attract contributors and for enterprise software to comply with standards and support users
• Related to: markdown, restructuredtext

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. Diagramming is a tool while Textual Documentation is a concept. We picked Diagramming based on overall popularity, but your choice depends on what you're building.

The Bottom Line

Diagramming wins

Based on overall popularity. Diagramming is more widely used, but Textual Documentation excels in its own space.