Before embarking on serious feature or architectural restructuring, please
put together a design doc explaining what you're going to do!
While not every element of your system may be obvious to you before you've
started writing code, you should at the very least be aware of what you're
trying to do at a high level, what the challenges are, limitations with
existing code, etc. Using this knowledge, you can put together a shell of a
document and then evolve it as you build out the design.

Shop your design document around with other engineers. Before you get too
far, send it to this list (chromium-dev) so that others have a chance to
review it and offer advice.

With increasing frequency I've heard people say "I don't understand X" or "Y
is confusing". I think this is because we have not done as well at creating
and reviewing design ideas we could have. Documentation is vital for
effective communication and understanding among stake-holders and ultimately
the long-term success of a project, so this is an area we must improve.

BTW when writing docs, remember that succinct is better than verbose, and a
picture is worth a thousand words. Tools like Omnigraffle make nice
diagrams.

-Ben

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