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do we need documentation in the age of AI? (thelemmy.club)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/programming@programming.dev
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recently I gave AI a task to configure a software and the software didn't have any docs of how it works only the source code. the agent went through all the files and generated a summary of how it works and why it's not working for my particular scenario and suggested edits to my docker-compose.yml file. I couldn't believe it since the bug was very hard to find and it used headless firefox to find why it wasn't working.

made me realize do we still need documentation of how a software work when a AI can easily explain it?

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[–] 1 point 3 weeks ago

In my opinion, the purpose of documentation isn't just documenting. It's a contract. It tells you what parts of the API are meant to be user-facing and that the devs will try to keep backwards compatible from one release to the next.

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