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Schrödinger's documentation #456

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7e59faa
Add the Schrödingers documentation law
KenBonny Apr 17, 2025
1a027ff
Fix typo
KenBonny Apr 17, 2025
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14 changes: 14 additions & 0 deletions README.md
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Expand Up @@ -49,6 +49,7 @@
- [Premature Optimization Effect](#premature-optimization-effect)
- [Putt's Law](#putts-law)
- [Reed's Law](#reeds-law)
- [Schrödinger's Documentation](#schrodingers-documentation)
- [The Bitter Lesson](#the-bitter-lesson)
- [The Ringelmann Effect](#the-ringelmann-effect)
- [The Law of Conservation of Complexity (Tesler's Law)](#the-law-of-conservation-of-complexity-teslers-law)
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -611,6 +612,19 @@ See also:
- [Metcalfe's Law](#metcalfes-law)
- [Dunbar's Number](#dunbars-number)

### Schrödinger's Documentation

[Schrödinger's cat on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger's_cat)
[Schrödinger's documentation on Twitter/X](https://x.com/MaritvanDijk77/status/1768529586860499434)
[Schrodinger's documentation on Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/maritvandijk.bsky.social/post/3knsbtr2lck27)

> If there is documentation, nobody will read it.
> If there is no documentation, users will complain about the lack thereof.

The irony of documentation is that is out of date the moment somebody thinks of a new feature. Thus maintaining accurate documentation takes a lot of time and effort. When there is accurate documentation, it is large and hard to navigate. Thus users don't read it and ask questions instead.

Yet when there is no documentation, a user will complain that he has to ask questions because they can’t look up the answer.

### The Bitter Lesson

[The Bitter Lesson by Richard S. Sutton](http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html)
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