: Re: Does DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) Apply to Documentation? In programming, it's usually accepted that DRY code is better code in most situations. Does this principle also apply to documentation?

@Samaraweera193

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The more your documentation is aimed at people reading it like a book the less you should repeat yourself. The more your documentation is a look at this one page read it put it away the more you should repeat yourself.

The most concrete example I can think of are aviation emergency checklists. No Co-Pilot is ever required to look anywhere else after he opened the correct check list. Everything is on that one page. Even if it's a step that is on half the pages (think inform tower), if it's deemed important enough to be there it's on every check list.

Since you apparently use automated documentation I'd say few repetitions in the user training guide but repeat yourself a lot in the emergency recovery runbook.

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