A recording of the talk: Contemporary Documentation - Juha-Matti Santala at PyCon Estonia 2019
Abstract
Teams change often. People leave and people join. In addition to those changes, we tend to forget what we were thinking. That’s why it’s a good practice to document those thoughts, discussions and decisions into a format that doesn’t lose them.
In this talk I explore ways to use tools and processes you might be familiar with - version control and project management tools - to help you document the motivation, thoughts and intents behind changes when they happen. You’ll get practical tips that you can take back to your work the next day.
Links and resources
- Slides (pdf, 31.7MB (sorry it’s massive Keynote export))
- Chesterton’s Fence and tech documentation : Juha-Matti Santala
- Writing commit messages by Simon Tatham
- My favourite Git commit by David Thompson
- Conventional Commits
- How to Write a Git Commit Message
- Focused commits 🔍 · Henrik Jernevad
- Commit it! » andreas.heigl.org
- How to Write Useful Commit Messages · Refactoring English
- Further discussion in Finnish at Webbidevaus podcast
Events
- 2025-03-13 @ archipylago
- 2024-06-19 @ Yle Atk-tuokio
- 2022-06-28 @ Codete Tech Lead meetup, Poland
- 2021-03-19 @ PyAmsterdam
- 2020-11-10 @ sthlm.js
- 2020-09-25 @ Django Day Copenhagen
- 2020-03-27 @ Work From Home Conf
- 2019-10-03 @ PyCon Estonia
- 2019-09-24 @ HelsinkiJS
- 2019-09-06 @ Tech Weeklies
- 2019-09-05 @ TampereJS