External Documentation vs Plain Text 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 plain text comments to improve code readability, facilitate team collaboration, and aid in debugging and future maintenance, especially in complex projects or when working with legacy code. 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

Plain Text Comments

Developers should use plain text comments to improve code readability, facilitate team collaboration, and aid in debugging and future maintenance, especially in complex projects or when working with legacy code

Pros

• They are essential for documenting assumptions, explaining non-obvious logic, and providing context that isn't apparent from the code itself, such as in algorithms, business rules, or workarounds
• Related to: code-documentation, readable-code

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. External Documentation is a methodology while Plain Text 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 Plain Text Comments excels in its own space.