A Review of Pattern Languages for Software Documentation

Abstract

Software documentation is an important part of the captured knowledge of a software project and documentation patterns have often been used as a systematic way to describe good practices on software documentation. Still, many software teams are challenged by what to document, how to keep the documentation consistent and how to make their consumers aware of the relevant documents. A literature review was done over 14 publications and identified 16 quality attributes and 114 patterns about software documentation. This knowledge was analysed and classified and led to the proposal of new categories and relationships between the existing patterns. These are depicted as a new pattern map that provides a new perspective of documentation patterns and can be used to guide teams in adopting software documentation practices.