6/9 Research Software Engineering with Python (COMP233) - Documentation

6/9 Research Software Engineering with Python (COMP233) - Documentation

From UCL for Code in Research by Peter Schmidt

November 13, 2025 · 17 min · Season 2 · Episode 6

About this episode

This episode discusses the importance of software documentation and the different levels of documentation needed for software engineers.

Documentating software is part of the life of software engineers. But what kind of documentation do we need? In this episode I take you through three levels of documentation: the basic README and LICENSE files everyone should have, how to be good at writing git commit messages and using tools to turn your source code comments into browsable documentation. Links https://www.sphinx-doc.org/https://pdoc.dev/docs/pdoc.htmlhttps://docs.python.org/3/library/pydoc.htmlhttps://wiki.python.org/moin/Do...

People in this episode

Host: Peter Schmidt

Topics covered

  • software documentation
  • software engineering
  • Python
  • git commit messages
  • source code comments

Keywords

  • documentation
  • README
  • LICENSE
  • git commit messages
  • browsable documentation

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Python, Sphinx, pdoc, Git

More episodes of UCL for Code in Research

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the UCL for Code in Research podcast page.