Chapter 8. Documentation

Documentation is like sex:when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is better than nothing.

—Dick Brandon

Any nontrivial software development project is likely to be accompanied by various formal or incidental documentation elements. In the following sections we present typical types of documentation you will encounter when examining projects, provide specific examples of how these can help you understand software code, examine some classes of documentation errors, and outline common open-source documentation formats. Take advantage of any documentation you find to supplement your code-reading effort. To paraphrase the aphorism advocating the use of your library: an hour of code reading can save ...

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