How API Documentation Fails

• Published in: IEEE software Vol. 32; no. 4; pp. 68 - 75
• Main Authors: Uddin, Gias, Robillard, Martin P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Alamitos IEEE 01.07.2015; IEEE Computer Society
• Subjects: API; Application programming interface; Application programming interfaces; Documentation; Failure analysis; Software development; software engineering; Studies; Uniform resource locators; user study

Formal documentation can be a crucial resource for learning to how to use an API. However, producing high-quality documentation can be nontrivial. Researchers investigated how 10 common documentation problems manifested themselves in practice. The results are based on two surveys of a total of 323 p...