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Examples are the best documentation

(rakhim.exotext.com)
409 points Bogdanp | 1 comments | 09 Oct 25 19:34 UTC | HN request time: 0.207s | source
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harimau777 ◴[10 Oct 25 12:35 UTC] No.45538265[source]▶
Please don't follow this advice! The best thing about old school Python was that I could reliably pull up the documentation for a library and it would clearly list the arguments and return values for each function.

Now when I look at the documentation for many JavaScript, and even Python, libraries it's just examples. That's great if I'm trying to just throw something together as quickly as possible, but not if I need to fix a problem or actually learn the library.

Also having examples is fine, but they should be considered a bonus; not documentation.

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1. stronglikedan ◴[10 Oct 25 18:48 UTC] No.45542376[source]▶
To me, you're describing a specification, a type of documentation, with examples being another type. And I agree that a specification should just list definitions with explanations.

But there's no reason that a document cannot contain both a specification and examples. That's the type I prefer, and that's the type I mostly encounter nowadays. Usually a specification on the left with some examples on the right, maybe even interactive examples.