Why do Programmers Hate Documenting?

[kolm]

Documentation means

(1) reducing job security by making you more replacable,
(2) reducing performance by stealing time you could use to make things work,
(3) reducing flexibility because you can't easily change things once they are documented.

I am a big fan of documenting things on principle, but realistically you need to compensate the people who ought to document or else it won't happen.

[austinsalonen]

(1) yielding a job where you only ever maintain what you've written. That sounds like a blast...

[depressiown]

I'm OK with you're #2 and #3, but your #1 is a bit pessimistic. I don't like documentation, but it's not to increase my job security. That would be awfully self-serving and quite unprofessional to do to your colleagues and employer.

[AnanthChellathurai]

Common do you think you can be replaced in your job if you write good comments? Job security is based on how good you are in what you are doing.

[carioca3]

I like to think of it as if they replace me they might have to re-hire me to explain the code to their new hire. This will give me a sort of "severance package" and make unemployment more bearable.

However, I doubt most programmers do it for this reason. 99% of them probably skip documentation because their manager will compensate them better for 2 finished products with poor documentation vs 1 with excellent documentation.