Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

75%
+4 −0
Q&A Does DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) Apply to Documentation?

The more your documentation is aimed at people reading it like a book the less you should repeat yourself. The more your documentation is a look at this one page read it put it away the more you sh...

posted 6y ago by Helmar‭  ·  last activity 3y ago by Monica Cellio‭

Answer
#4: Post undeleted by user avatar Monica Cellio‭ · 2021-02-08T14:37:05Z (about 3 years ago)
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T08:03:25Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33531
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Helmar‭ · 2019-12-08T08:03:25Z (over 4 years ago)
The more your documentation is aimed at people reading it like a book the less you should repeat yourself. The more your documentation is a _look at this one page read it put it away_ the more you should repeat yourself.

The most concrete example I can think of are aviation emergency checklists. No Co-Pilot is ever required to look anywhere else after he opened the correct check list. Everything is on that one page. Even if it's a step that is on half the pages (think _inform tower_), if it's deemed important enough to be there it's on every check list.

Since you apparently use automated documentation I'd say few repetitions in the _user training guide_ but repeat yourself a lot in the _emergency recovery runbook._

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-01-31T15:43:56Z (about 6 years ago)
Original score: 18