Which is the best way to keep up all your documentation? [closed]

Question

I hope I'm not bothering anybody with this question. I have my technical documentation scattered using different methods, here is a list of the most used:

• notebook I have several notebooks full of notes, I guess everybody has at least one.
• git I have a repository called notes . It's quite simple, just using text notes, nothing fancy.
• odt In the previous company I worked for, we used to write technical documentation using Open Office
• wiki After trying the above methods I found this was the most useful, just because I only need a web browser to start writing things down.

Recently I start studying on my own an IT certification and I have all my notes in a notebook. I do not know which is the best way to keep my documentation available and updated.

What would you recommend me?

Answer 1

joeqwerty's comment is correct, this is totally subjective. That said, if you look at some of the older questions and answers for the documentation tag, there's a lot of good suggestions.

To answer in a more general sense, I think the main requirements for a good documentation system are:

• Easy to start up or access, it has to be really fast to go into it to add or update some notes
• Accessible to all team members
• Accessible from wherever you are, your usual location, other people's computers, off-site, etc.

"The best" is whatever combination of shared files, sharepoint, wiki, docs stored/replicated in the cloud, etc., etc., works best for you.

Answer 2

I'm using Google Docs and i'm happy with that...

Answer 3

At my workplace, we have a CIFS share full of tons of documentation (most of it PDFs from manufacturers, etc.) that we use. What makes this convenient is any type of data can be stored and you need only remote to your work computer to access it.

That said, for purely text-based documentation, I've found the wiki i set up (using Mediawiki) to be very convenient. It puts all your documentation in a version-controlled database so you can see what changes were made, when they were made, and by whom. It also makes it very easy to find what you're looking for and move between different documents. Unfortunately, most of my coworkers are reluctant to use the system because they can't be bothered to learn the Mediawiki syntax, as easy as it is. If nothing else, it makes things easier for myself when I go back to work on something I set up months ago.

Answer 4

I use a Sharepoint document library. It allows me to create and upload Word, Excel, PDF documents, etc. That way I don't have to convert or save my documentation in a particular file format (other than it being a file type supported by Sharepoint document libraries).