The great thing about old ARC/INFO was that they had the best documentation. I mean, nothing I’ve ever seen since then has come close. Binders of the functions with real world examples. I kept those binders for years because IDENTITY never changed:
IDENTITY <in_cover> <identity_cover> <out_cover> {POLY | LINE | POINT} {fuzzy_tolerance} {JOIN | NOJOIN}
I’m sure this command is exactly the same in ArcGIS today if not ArcGIS Pro, except the input is no longer “cover”. But that is how one best teaches themselves. What made this documentation special was the content, not the binders.
I was thinking today what examples of documentation really shine for learning and one really comes to mind. Notebooks. I really have been impressed with
Jupyter Notebooks. I really love how it combines both analysis and text to help you better understand what the purpose of an action it. So many companies (
including Esri) have embraced this style of analysis including
Amazon,
Google and
Microsoft. I’m continued to be impressed by Notebooks and what people are doing with them.
I think deep down, those who have a sciences degree just like documentation. Even if they aren’t sharing it with anyone, good docs just make whatever you’re doing better. At least that is how I roll.
