Note on The Duty to Document via nicolasbouliane.com

I owe a debt of gratitude to those whose knowledge helped me debug software, repair bicycles, choose camping gear, start a business, and deal with anything life throws at me.

I repay that debt by marking my own trails. When I think “it should not have been this hard to find out”, I make it easier to find out.

FROM:

nicolasbouliane.com

The Duty to Document

Source

This duty isn’t abstract. Simon Sarris’ Breadcrumbs makes the same case through the same metaphor: leaving a trail is how you build community and pull others forward. And James Stanier’s Read Widely, Apply Selectively, Share Regardless scales it up: real progress in any field comes from a collective of people marking their paths, not just lone experts, so even your “obvious” documentation is load-bearing for someone else.