External Documentation vs Code Comments

Developers should learn and use external documentation to improve software usability, maintainability, and collaboration, especially in team environments or for public-facing projects meets developers should use code comments to improve code readability, facilitate team collaboration, and aid in future maintenance, especially in complex or non-intuitive sections. Here's our take.

External Documentation

Nice Pick

Developers should learn and use external documentation to improve software usability, maintainability, and collaboration, especially in team environments or for public-facing projects

Pros

• It is essential when building APIs, libraries, or complex systems where users need clear instructions beyond code, such as in open-source contributions, enterprise software, or regulatory compliance scenarios
• Related to: technical-writing, api-documentation

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

Code Comments

Developers should use code comments to improve code readability, facilitate team collaboration, and aid in future maintenance, especially in complex or non-intuitive sections

Pros

• They are essential for documenting APIs, explaining algorithms, noting edge cases, and providing context for legacy code, which reduces onboarding time and prevents errors during modifications
• Related to: code-documentation, clean-code

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. External Documentation is a methodology while Code Comments is a concept. We picked External Documentation based on overall popularity, but your choice depends on what you're building.

The Bottom Line

External Documentation wins

Based on overall popularity. External Documentation is more widely used, but Code Comments excels in its own space.