Documentation for software engineers: what is needed to aid system understanding?

Authors:
Bill Thomas;Scott Tilley
Affiliations:
Carnegie Mellon University;University of California, Riverside, CA
Venue:
SIGDOC '01 Proceedings of the 19th annual international conference on Computer documentation
Year:
2001

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Abstract

Software engineers rely on program documentation as an aid in understanding the functional nature, high-level design, and implementation details of complex applications. However, no one really knows what types of documentation are truly useful to software engineers to aid system understanding. This workshop focuses on issues related to this fundamental problem, such as what formats the documentation should take, who should produce it, and when. The juxtaposition of a technical communication audience with software engineering researchers and practitioners will provide new insights into the problem.