Sunday 10 a.m.–1 p.m. in

Fighting Documentation Drift

Terrence Reilly

Description

One of the main arguments against documentation is that it frequently falls out of sync with the code it is supposed to describe. However, the solution isn't to document less; the solution is to automate the process of checking our documentation. This is the idea behind [darglint](https://github.com/terrencepreilly/darglint), a docstring argument linter. *Darglint* can identify certain types of documentation drift with docstring, such as - missing/extraneous parameters, - missing/extraneous return or yield statements, - missing/extraneous exception descriptions, As well as a variety of stylistic errors which can make parsing the docstring difficult. This poster will describe and demonstrate *darglint*, measure its effectiveness against open-source projects, and explore other possibilities for fighting documentation drift.