Diátaxis

(diataxis.fr)

69 points | by ryanseys 1 hour ago

6 comments

  • rkangel 7 minutes ago
    I and my team did a full set of documentation for handing over a codebase to the client. A large complex codebase with accumulated history and subtle reasons why things were done.

    Diataxis was fantastic. It took a bit of effort to work out what the page titles were to cover everything we needed, but then when you were writing a page it was glorious.

    It was so clear what you were saying and what "voice" you were writing in. If it's a Reference page you're all descriptive, with diagrams and bullet points. When it's a guide you're more discursive, but you know you're just imparting information not trying to teach. It made it so much easier to be coherent and clear about everything.

  • Hnrobert42 1 hour ago
    I urge people to not read this. Once you do, you will see all documentation will as the flawed and confusing mess it is. Ignorance is bliss!
    • swyx 1 hour ago
      truly. its the kind of thing that makes docs people justify their jobs rather than coming from a founder or user centric pov
  • conradludgate 1 hour ago
    I never saw the point in Diataxis, but honestly while vibe coding it's pretty convenient to tell an LLM "do diataxis" and get decent first pass documentation out of it.
    • radicalriddler 1 hour ago
      Agreed, a couple months back, I got cf to crawl the site and created a block of skills around it for personal use.
    • c0rruptbytes 1 hour ago
      same, it’s great for first pass LLM docs
  • tedd4u 1 hour ago
    Posted many times. Here's the most recent time from 2024 (also has most discussion).

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42325011

  • smokel 1 hour ago
    Perhaps add "A systematic approach to technical documentation authoring" to the title?
  • lijok 8 minutes ago
    Diataxis + ADRs + C4 = The holy trinity of docs