# Machines, Code, People

> A Zühlke anthology of 50 short pieces. Romano Roth contributed the chapter on documenting architecture decisions.

- Date: 2019-06-18
- Source: https://romanoroth.com/en/books/machines-code-people/
- Tags: Architecture Decisions, Documentation, Software Engineering


An anthology from Zühlke: 50 short pieces, one per engineer, on whatever that person cares most about.

Mine is called *CYA: Cover your ass*, and it is about documenting architecture decisions. Not the 200-page document nobody reads. The short record of what was decided, what the alternatives were, and why one of them won, written at the moment the decision is made and cheap enough that people actually write it.

Seven years on, that is still the practice I recommend first when a team tells me they keep relitigating the same questions.