Documentation is a needed aspect in modern day projects. As applications and softwares have to be updated on a regular basis, it becomes necessary to document the tasks and especially the code.
Documented code helps the developer and other team members in so many ways. Also, there can be instances where some code has to be changed. Imagine a scenario where a developer coded an application in a certain way. After some time, a client asks to change some aspect of the application. Now, if the developer hadn’t documented the code, they would have a hard time finding the code for the part that they want to change.
This is just one example of the importance of documenting all your code. We’ll talk about many other advantages in the following section.
Benefits of Documenting The Code
Coding is a complicated task for people who don’t have any knowledge about computers. Even the people that are professional coders can have a hard time to build logic and code as per the client’s requirements. For that matter, it becomes vital to be aware about the benefits of documentation and how the documentation can make a positive difference.
The benefits of documenting the code are:
Easier to Understand for Non-Coders
This is the number one benefit of documenting the code. As an IT company comprises many teams specialising in different skills, it is essential to make other team members understand your code. Without integration of other teams, it is very difficult to achieve success and complete projects effectively. Other teams would be able to work efficiently, only when they’ll be aware about the code and functionality.
Changes In Future
These days, most of the clients want their applications to stay updated. That is because of the increasing competition. In such cases, code documentation can go a long way and can help coders in ways that they’d thank themselves for it.
Oftentimes, clients want to get some functionality added or removed from the application or software. With the help of documentation, coders can easily identify the places where changes have to be made. This quality of documentation helps to save time and effort of the coder.
Documentation For Yourself
This quality of documentation is often ignored. People forget that coders can have a hard time to remember why they coded something in a certain way. So, this benefit of documentation is for those coders who handle long and complicated projects.
The biggest benefits of documenting your code and adding comments is that you’ll be aware why you wrote certain code. Also, code is connected. If you’d be aware about the reasons for coding in a certain way, then you’d also know which code would work with the previous code.
To Sum Up
It’s a bit confusing but once you start practicing it, it becomes a habit. And this habit has helped millions of coders around the world. The efficiency and time management during the development has improved tremendously because of documentation. We promise that putting your time and effort in documenting will definitely prove to be fruitful for you and your organisation.