Documentation System

Project Documentation organised by The Documentation System.

There is a secret that needs to be understood in order to write good software documentation: there isn’t one thing called documentation, there are four.

They are: tutorials, how-to guides, technical reference and explanation. They represent four different purposes or functions, and require four different approaches to their creation.

Understanding the implications of this will help improve most documentation - often immensely.

	Tutorials	How-to guides	Reference	Explanation
oriented to	learning	a goal	information	understanding
must	allow the newcomer to get started	show how to solve a specific problem	describe the machinery	explain
its form	a lesson	a series of steps	dry description	discursive explanation
analogy	teaching a small child how to cook	a recipe in a cookery book	a reference encyclopedia article	an article on culinary social history