Why don't developers seem to care about good documentation?

[ThJ]

It seems that most techies out there are absolutely fine with systems that lack documentation.

If you point out a severe lack of documentation to the average developer, they might agree with your observation, only to shrug it off, as if this isn't a big deal to them.

I almost get the impression that they like the lack of documentation, because they get to explore and mess around.

The reason I say this is that poorly documented libraries and frameworks that I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole are used in a ton of projects out there. People choose to use them, while completely neglecting to quality check the documentation.

I don't like to explore and mess around. I want to get the job done. Having to struggle to figure out how a system works makes me frustrated, and I don't enjoy it at all. Actually taking pleasure from this strikes me as a form of masochism.

Why would a technical manager choose to use such a system to begin with? The only two reasons I can think of is that they simply don't care about documentation, and that they're going for job security or vendor lock-in: I know this obscure system and now you can't get rid of me.

What are your thoughts?

[iamNumber4]

Documentation is a catch 22. We love having it, but it is a beast of burden create. We also feel the pressure from management or self imposed deadlines to get something done. So documentation is the first thing to slip.

You also can’t document everything. Well not at first. You always have gaps and most times they are filled when some needs something and it is not there.

Which then highlights the biggest issue, you have to maintain it. So since there is that constraint and burden, the sentiment is why have it. The source code should be self documenting. Yadda yadda

[ThJ]

Right, but that's the output end of it. What about the input end? Developers are also users of libraries and frameworks. My question is perhaps more about why poorly documented frameworks end up in production systems than why people don't write documentation (we mostly know the answer to this already).

[x0hm]

Because documentation is boring.