this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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Programming

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Algorithms instead of source code !! (lemmy.world)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Disclaimer : I am a hobbyist programmer, I have not gone to Uni for that , so I might not know everything I am talking about.

My question is why don't open source programs include something like diagrams of the algorithms they employ ?? I Was looking for algorithms for a chat program with client-server architecture, I was hoping to find diagrams and descriptions of how algorithms work, so a to study them an adapt them to my needs. All I found were FOSS projects with no such documentation.

Considering that reading source code can take a long time, and sometimes interesting projects are written in a language the user isn't familiar with, I was wondering why such documentation style doesn't exist ? It could help even newer contributors get started quicker.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Considering that reading source code can take a long time

You'll get faster over time, until reading code is faster than reading documentation, as code will always represent what's truly happening, while docs are frequently outdated.

In a language the user isn't familiar with

If you're not that familiar with the language, it's likely you won't be contributing to the project. Open source projects usually to have quite limited resources, so they tend to optimize docs and dev UX for people who are likely to contribute.