Documentation as a First-Class Citizen

Let me paint a familiar picture. You inherit a codebase. There’s a README file that was last updated two years ago. The API documentation references endpoints that no longer exist. The “Getting Started” guide requires three deprecated dependencies and a sacrifice to the old gods. Welcome to the reality of software documentation in most projects.

We’ve all been there, cursing the developers who came before us for leaving such a mess. And yet, how many of us are creating the same frustration for those who will follow? Documentation is the most neglected aspect of software development, and it’s time we changed that.

Why Documentation Gets Neglected

The reasons are predictable. Documentation doesn’t ship features. It doesn’t fix bugs. It doesn’t make the demo look more impressive. In the pressure to deliver, documentation is always the first thing to be cut and the last thing to be added.

There’s also an element of ego at play. “My code is self-documenting,” developers say, as if naming a function processData somehow explains the business rules it implements. Code tells you what is happening; documentation tells you why.

And let’s be honest—writing documentation isn’t particularly exciting. It’s not the reason any of us got into software development. We want to build things, solve problems, write clever algorithms. Explaining how those things work to others feels like homework after the fun part is done.

The True Cost of Poor Documentation

The cost of poor documentation is invisible until it’s catastrophic. It manifests in:

Onboarding delays where new team members spend weeks figuring out what should take days. Every question they ask is time taken from someone who could be productive. Multiply this by every developer who ever joins the team.

Knowledge silos form when only certain people know how things work. When those people leave—and they always eventually leave—their knowledge walks out the door with them. Suddenly, critical systems become black boxes that everyone is afraid to touch.

Repeated mistakes happen when there’s no record of why decisions were made. Without context, developers will revisit the same failed approaches, waste time on already-solved problems, and potentially reintroduce bugs that were fixed years ago.

Support burden increases dramatically when users can’t find answers themselves. Every support ticket for something that could have been documented is time and money wasted.

What Good Documentation Looks Like

Good documentation serves different audiences with different needs. A comprehensive documentation strategy includes:

Getting Started guides help new users or developers get up and running quickly. These should be ruthlessly practical—no theory, just the minimum steps needed to see something working.

Conceptual documentation explains the why behind the system. What problems does it solve? What are the core concepts? How do the pieces fit together? This is where architectural decisions and business context belong.

Reference documentation provides the complete, detailed specification of APIs, configuration options, and interfaces. This should be comprehensive and accurate, even if it’s not riveting reading.

Tutorials and examples show how to accomplish common tasks. Real-world examples are worth a thousand words of abstract explanation.

Troubleshooting guides address common problems and their solutions. These often emerge organically from support requests and should be continuously updated.

Documentation as Code

One of the most effective approaches is treating documentation like code. This means:

Storing documentation alongside code in the same repository. When documentation lives separately from the code it describes, it inevitably drifts out of sync.

Reviewing documentation changes with the same rigour as code changes. If a pull request changes functionality, it should include corresponding documentation updates.

Testing documentation where possible. Code examples in documentation should be extracted and executed as part of your test suite to ensure they remain accurate.

Versioning documentation alongside releases. Users on version 2.3 shouldn’t be reading documentation for version 3.0.

Making Documentation Maintainable

The biggest enemy of documentation is staleness. Documentation that’s wrong is often worse than no documentation at all—it actively misleads.

Keep it DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself). If the same information appears in multiple places, it will inevitably become inconsistent. Single source of truth applies to documentation as much as code.

Automate where possible. API documentation can often be generated from code annotations. Configuration options can be documented inline and extracted. The less manual upkeep required, the more likely documentation will stay current.

Build documentation into your definition of done. A feature isn’t complete until it’s documented. Make this explicit and non-negotiable.

Assign ownership. Someone needs to be responsible for documentation quality. Without ownership, maintenance falls through the cracks.

Writing Documentation That People Actually Read

Even the best documentation is useless if nobody reads it. A few principles help:

Lead with the most important information. Don’t bury the critical details three paragraphs deep. Assume your reader is scanning, not studying.

Use clear, simple language. Documentation isn’t the place for showing off your vocabulary. Short sentences. Active voice. Plain words.

Include lots of examples. Abstract explanations are hard to follow. Concrete examples make concepts tangible.

Format for scannability. Use headers, lists, code blocks, and whitespace liberally. Dense walls of text are intimidating and hard to navigate.

The Bottom Line

Documentation is a core part of your product, not a nice-to-have extra. The time invested in good documentation pays dividends in reduced support burden, faster onboarding, and systems that remain maintainable over time.

The best documentation doesn’t feel like documentation at all—it feels like having a helpful colleague available 24/7 to answer your questions. Aim for that.

At WhiteFish Creative, we believe that documentation is part of the craft of software development. If your project’s documentation needs rescuing—or if you’d rather not create that documentation debt in the first place—reach out to James Studdart. We’re here to help you build software that explains itself.

Remember: the code you write today is the legacy system of tomorrow. Be kind to your future colleagues—document your work!