DEV Community

Cover image for DocOps For Beginners: All You Need To Know

DocOps For Beginners: All You Need To Know

Dumebi Okolo on August 12, 2024

Going ahead with my drive for professional development, I am taking a deeper dive into Documentation Engineering and learning more about documenta...
Collapse
 
whimsicalbison profile image
Jack

Thank you for writing this article. I was unfamiliar with DocOps before, but it has piqued my interest. It seems like a promising approach, though Iā€™d like to see it in action. You mentioned several tools like Jekyll, Hugo, Git, Jenkins, and Travis CI. It would be helpful to see a sample repository that implements DocOps as it still seems somewhat theoretical to me without more tooling.

How do you handle keeping documentation updated with code changes? Tracking updates to documentation in sync with programming changes can be challenging, especially if tools like Swagger aren't used. One approach could be to require documentation updates with each pull request, but I can see this leading to superficial changes, such as unnecessary whitespace edits, just to meet the requirement. How do you address this issue effectively?

Documentation in most companies definitely needs to improve, and this could be a path forward for this improvement

Collapse
 
vutunglaminfo profile image
Vu Tung Lam

Agree. The article is full of theoretical statements. The author should have added a minimum working example, otherwise what they have presented here is close to nothing.

Collapse
 
dumebii profile image
Dumebi Okolo

Hi, thank you for your observation.
Like I said at the start of the article, this was a research-based article. I heard about DocOps and did my research on it. You can think of this article as my notes or findings.

However, I came across this article during my research. Here is a company that has tried DocOps and has more practical than theory.

I hope this helps. Thank you.

Thread Thread
 
whimsicalbison profile image
Jack

Wow, back in 2014 even. The article you referenced also didn't have any working examples, although there was a link to another LinkedIn Article "for more information", but this article was no longer available.

Thread Thread
 
dumebii profile image
Dumebi Okolo

Oh Hmmm šŸ¤”
The "more information" Article was available when I was doing my research. I wonder. I'd check.

Thread Thread
 
dumebii profile image
Dumebi Okolo

@whimsicalbison , check it on this link.

Collapse
 
dumebii profile image
Dumebi Okolo

@whimsicalbison , to answer your question, and this is my personal opinion:
Documentation should be done after each milestone is reached.
For example, where I work, each week, the devs are given a milestone or a specific aspect of the project to get to or knock-off. After each milestone is reached, tested, and approved, the docs guy goes in to document that change.
This process also applies to bug fixes and reviews. Such that the documentation only happens have "success" has been achieved.

Collapse
 
whimsicalbison profile image
Jack

Wonder what that is like to have a dedicated "docs guy", LOL. Feel like it would be easier to ensure that documentation gets written if there was someone dedicated to that rather than it being everyone's responsibility, and of course everyone has too much going on already

Thread Thread
 
dumebii profile image
Dumebi Okolo

Orgs actually do. That's why they hire technical writers or documentation engineers or DevRel. It's become an increasingly common trend now.

Collapse
 
inspiraller profile image
steve

I'm curious how anyone can retain their memory on milestones of development within devops without documentation of exact steps. Given the huge potential for human error when connecting services, applying specific syntax with formulas, from docker to bash, ssl, node, api development, cors, passing secrets, authentication and security, bundle sizing for cost etc. We are all experts in specific areas of development but lack all knowledge off the top of our head for such a vast detail of administrating and configuration.

Collapse
 
dumebii profile image
Dumebi Okolo

What are your opinions on DocOps? šŸ¤”

Are you willing to implement it in your organization?

Let me know!

Collapse
 
jitendrachoudhary profile image
Jitendra Choudhary

Nice read

Collapse
 
dumebii profile image
Dumebi Okolo

Thank you!

Collapse
 
isreal profile image
Adeeko Tobiloba Isreal

Well.. I would try out DocOps

Collapse
 
dumebii profile image
Dumebi Okolo

Thanks, my leader