In general terms, documentation is any communicable material (such as text, video, audio, etc., or combinations thereof) used to explain some attributes of an object, system or procedure. It is often used to mean engineering or software documentation, which is usually paper books or computer readable files (such as HTML pages) that describe the structure and components, or on the other hand, operation, of a system/product. Engineering is the design, analysis, and/or construction of works for practical purposes. ... Software Documentation or Source Code Documentation is written text that accompanies computer software. ... The term machine-readable or computer-readable refers to information encoded in a form which can be read or understood by a machine / computer and interpreted by hardware and / or software. ... HTML, short for Hypertext Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for the creation of web pages. ...

A professional whose field and work is more or less exclusively to write documentation is called a documenter. Normally, documenters are trained or have a background in technical writing, along with some knowledge of the subject(s) they are documenting. Often, though, some part or all of the documentation process is done by the engineers responsible for the system/product to be documented. Technical Writers are professional writers who design, create and maintain/update many types of technical documentation, online help, user guides, design specifications, and other documents for their given field, which can be most anything that requires specialized knowledge and information. ...

By engineers, perhaps among software engineers in particular, documentation is often referred to as the "boring side" of engineering, or considered a necessary evil. This is largely unavoidable since most engineers prefer building things to documenting them, and being implicit experts in what they have built, they may have little motivation in documenting their creations so that others may understand them. e. ...

Common types of computer hardware/software documentation include online help, FAQs, HowTos, and user guides. The term RTFM is often used in regard to such documentation, especially to computer hardware and software user guides. Computer hardware is the physical part of a computer, including the digital circuitry, as distinguished from the computer software that executes within the hardware. ... Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ... Online Help is topic, procedural or reference information delivered through computer software. ... FAQ is an abbreviation for Frequently Asked Question(s). The term refers to listed questions and answers, all supposed to be frequently asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. ... A how-to is an informal, often short, description of how to accomplish some specific task. ... A user guide, also commonly known as a manual, is a technical communication document intended to give assistance to people using a particular system. ... RTFM is an initialism for the statement Read The Fucking Manual. ...

A common type of software document frequently written by software engineers in the simulation industry is the SDF (software documentation folder). While developing the software for a simulator, which can range from embedded avionics devices to 3D terrain databases to full motion control systems, the engineer keeps a notebook detailing the development lifecycle of the project. The notebook can contain a requirements section, an interface section detailing the communication interface of the software, a notes section to detail the proof of concept attempts to track what worked or didn't work in solving certain problems, and a testing section to detail how the software will be tested to prove conformance to the requirements of the contract. The end result is a detailed description of how the software is designed, how to build and install the software on the target device, and any known weaknesses in the design of the software. This document will allow future developers and maintainers of the trainer to come up to speed on the software design in as short a time as possible and have a documented reference when modifying code or searching for bugs.

In some European countries, documentation in an academic context is an obsolete term for the field of study that is now known as library science or information science. Library science is the science and study of issues related to libraries and the organization and management of information resources. ... The Ancient Library of Alexandria, an early form of information storage and retrieval. ...

See also

• Court orders
• Document
• Freedom of information
• Historical document

Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... For the similarly-named Surrealist journal, see Documents (journal). ... Freedom of information can mean: whether a particular piece of information can be freely created, read, modified, copied and distributed; see free content (as well as free culture and free software) freedom to express ones opinions or ideas, generally, within a society; see freedom of speech the accessibility of... Historical documents are document that contain important information about a person, place, or event. ...

External Links

• Documentation Definition by The Linux Information Project (LINFO)