Documentation Is Not a Story

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 17:42:37 +1000

There’s a quiet assumption baked into most technical documentation: that someone will sit down and read it. Start at the top, work through to the bottom, arrive at the other end understanding the system. We write as if we’re authoring a textbook, taking a reader on a careful journey from ignorance to competence.

Nobody reads documentation like that. They never really did, and in the age of AI they definitely don’t. So it’s worth asking what documentation is actually for, and whether the way we write it still matches the way it gets used.

Developer-Experience on Panditha

Documentation Is Not a Story