Facebook Documentation Is Now Generated Automatically from Source Code

Facebook has one of the biggest and most popular platforms on the web. Many developers leverage the Facebook API, even if it's just to enable Facebook logins.

It's safe to assume that many of them would rely on Facebook no matter what, it's the biggest site on the planet, but it certainly helps to have a friendly attitude towards them.

Friendly can be something as simple as providing accurate, comprehensive and up to date documentation to guide them.

But keeping the documentation up to date when you're constantly doing new things or changing old ones is hard.

Which is why Facebook has now turned to an automated method, much of its documentation is now generated from the Facebook source code itself.

This means that changes to APIs and methods will instantly be reflected in the documentation and that the material will always reflect the latest versions of the features they're covering.

"This new process makes our documentation more accurate, complete and keeps it up-to-date over time. Today's release includes FQL, Android SDK and iOS SDK reference docs. We're currently working on converting the Graph API and other reference docs," Facebook explained.