Summary and Schedule

Have you ever been handed a piece of legacy code to use or maintain, only to find that there is little to no documentation? How long have you spent trying to decompose and understand its functionality?

In this lesson, students will learn about the different types of software documentation, as well as how to write it well and tools to enable better documentation habits.

Prerequisites

• Basic understanding of git
• git (installed locally)
• Basic understanding of python
• Python 3.10+ with pip (installed locally)
• Text editor
• GitHub account
• Copy of INTERSECT Practice Template

	Setup Instructions	Download files required for the lesson
Duration: 00h 00m	1. Introduction	“What is software documentation?” “Why do we care about it?” “What are the challenges?”
Duration: 00h 10m	2. Types of Software Documentation	“What are the different types of software documentation?” “How do the types differ?”
Duration: 00h 20m	3. Documentation Better Practices	“How does bias affect documentation?” “What are better practices for software documentation?”
Duration: 00h 50m	4. Documentation in Practice	“What does developer documentation look like in practice?” “What does user documentation look like in practice?”
Duration: 01h 05m	5. Documentation Tools	“What tools enable better documentation?” “What tools can streamline the documentation process?”
Duration: 01h 30m	Finish

The actual schedule may vary slightly depending on the topics and exercises chosen by the instructor.

CodeRefinery has useful information about how to get started with git, from installation to usage.

• Installing git
• Introduction to git
• Setting up a GitHub Account

Most Linux and Windows machines come with a default version of Python. If your machine does not have Python already installed or the default version is too old, please use the following how-to:

• Installing Python