Living Documentation

You don't necessarily have to chose between Working Software and Extensive Documentation!

The approach "Specification by Example" has introduced the idea of a "Living Documentation". In this approach, examples of behavior are used for documentation and are also promoted into automated tests. Whenever a test fails, it signals the documentation is no longer in sync with the code so it can just be fixed quickly.

This has shown that it is possible to have useful documentation that doesn't suffer the fate of getting obsolete once written.

But we can go much further. This book expands on this idea of a Living Documentation. It shows how a living documentation evolves at the same pace than the code, for all aspects of a project, from the business goals to the business domain knowledge, architecture and design, processes and deployment.

This book explains the theory and describes a number of techniques, with illustrations and concrete examples. You will learn how to start investing into documentation that is always up to date, at a minimal extra cost thanks to well-crafted artifacts and the use of automation.