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do we need documentation in the age of AI? (thelemmy.club)

submitted 3 weeks ago by bruh@thelemmy.club to c/programming@programming.dev

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recently I gave AI a task to configure a software and the software didn't have any docs of how it works only the source code. the agent went through all the files and generated a summary of how it works and why it's not working for my particular scenario and suggested edits to my docker-compose.yml file. I couldn't believe it since the bug was very hard to find and it used headless firefox to find why it wasn't working.

made me realize do we still need documentation of how a software work when a AI can easily explain it?

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[–] TheMightyCat@ani.social 21 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yes cause understanding software is important even if you use AI.

And even if you want to go full vibe code and never look at anything yourself the AI does need documentation, compare the performance of an agent on a large project with and without an AGENTS.md, the difference is massive. Without the agent usually does figure it out, but it spends a ton of tokens searching.

[–] bruh@thelemmy.club 0 points 3 weeks ago

but it spends a ton of tokens searching.

I can see that could be an issue. also it's nice to have a good idea of the codebase. good point