

Ask HN: What is your favorite documentation website? - davewasmer

What are some examples of the best documentation you have used, especially on the web? Based on both the content of the documentation, as well as the UI/UX to actually read it.<p>I'm interested to see what other developers think makes for good documentation.
======
okaramian
I'm not a big fan of having a bunch of handholding examples in a blog or
something similar. I remember Spotify's setup being pretty decent as far as
application related documentation.

<https://github.com/spotify/apps-tutorial>

If it's something OSS I'm good with a github with the code up, maybe a couple
of examples that are well commented and easy to get up and running within the
framework, and a reasonable README to guide me through the process.

I'm already experienced with writing software, so if I have something to play
with and read through in a text editor I can learn what's going on faster than
reading about how to set hello world up for a new framework.

~~~
davewasmer
What about if it isn't OSS? Do you like more reference style docs (i.e. this
method takes arguments x, y, z, returns a string) or narrative (i.e. to
accomplish goal x, you'll need to do y and z like this ...)?

~~~
okaramian
Honestly, I'd rather have a well commented example application that utilizes
the framework with decent API documentation. So a little bit of both. The APIs
are hopefully written well enough that things are fairly self documenting.

Maybe a couple of different example applications to serve different goals
would be helpful as well instead of one monolithic project.

I've just never really been big on blog posts that are showing me code and why
things are there, when that can all be done within the project itself and I
can run it, maybe setup breakpoints and hack around. I can get up and running
faster that way, and I hate high barriers to entry when I'm looking to play
around with something.

------
davewasmer
Personally, I find Stripe's documentation to be excellent. It's clear,
concise, and a good balance between narrative guides and comprehensive
reference material:

<https://stripe.com/docs>

------
hayksaakian
i like rubyonrails.org, a thorough reference of rails basics. I end up using
it frequently to correct my syntax for things like rendering partials, etc.

------
deveshz
I really like the way Coffeescript is documented. <http://coffeescript.org/>

