Non-friendly documentation

Here’s a very common trajectory:

  • new user starts learning Julia or a package.
  • finds documentation really confusing. Wonders why people can’t write decent documentation. Does not feel comfortable contributing by filing problem reports or fixes, on the grounds that s/he does not yet understand enough about the package to make a meaningful contribution.
  • struggles a lot but eventually figures it out.
  • moves on. Notices someone else struggling with the same package. But doesn’t help out, because isn’t motivated to put time into improving the documentation since by now s/he understands the package and doesn’t need the documentation.

This is an incredibly costly cycle (the number of wasted hours are huge), but I don’t know how to break it.

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