10 minutes of documentation ...

I spent last couple months working in technology division of one of most revered companies. It was one of the most challenging assignments I have ever worked on. It was one of the most complex architectures; and lack of documentation made it even more complex. I had no idea that, I will have to play Spy’s role along with providing technical solutions. My education has equipped me with enough the technical knowledge but no spying techniques :-( .

I talked to many people inside and outside of the group, on the importance of documentation. Everyone turned cold shoulders to me saying, “We are driven by business, I will rather do some useful work than documentation (I never knew documentation is useless thing).” Well people should understand that only 20% time is spent in developing software where as 80% time is spent in maintaining it.

Well if you think you have right of saving 10 minutes of your time while developing a component and then wasting 20 minutes of someone else’s time every time he/she comes to fix it, then you have a problem.