Maybe I'm dimmer than the average techie, but I need both. Much of my current job is frustrating because it's a big company and every new task I encounter is presented with only an example of how the previous person did it. Instead of, "This is what we're trying to achieve, this is how the thing works, this is how we do it," all that ever gets exposed to ICs is the "this is how we do it" part. This makes it impossible to reason about, adjust, and troubleshoot when even the slightest deviation is required. Yes, there is often SOME documentation tasks which are performed very often, but it's often outdated or incomplete. But it's not in a wiki, so not just anyone can updated at any time, there's a whole obnoxious process for updating the docs, which is why they never get updated.
Now that I think of it, this reminds me quite a bit of my time in the military...
The thing is that you can derive the “this is how to do it” from the first two, but not the other way around. While it’s very helpful to have all three, the first two are essential while the last one is not.
Now that I think of it, this reminds me quite a bit of my time in the military...