External Documentation vs Self Documenting Code

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 adopt self documenting code to streamline maintenance, onboarding, and debugging processes, especially in team environments or long-term projects where code clarity is critical. 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

Self Documenting Code

Developers should adopt Self Documenting Code to streamline maintenance, onboarding, and debugging processes, especially in team environments or long-term projects where code clarity is critical

Pros

• It is particularly valuable in agile development, open-source contributions, and legacy system updates, as it minimizes reliance on outdated or missing documentation and reduces the cognitive load for anyone reading the code
• Related to: clean-code, code-review

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. External Documentation is a methodology while Self Documenting Code 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 Self Documenting Code excels in its own space.