Should Rust online documentation include a "last updated " date tag?

#1

There`s tons of Rust language documentation available on the web, but too many lack a "last updated" date tag allowing readers to decide whether they are reading something that is 3 months old, 1 year old or 5 years old.

e.g. anyone trying to learn about Rust error management using on-line docs ends up with a confusing mess of recommendations regarding the use of unwrap(), match statements, Result <> , operator ? etc.

Obviously outdated online docs cant be avoided given that Rust is evolving, but including a "last updated" date would help users place less emphasis on older information which is more likely to be outdated

1 Like
#2

It's worth mentioning that documentation on docs.rs already includes a yellow warning if you are on old content.

#3

It depends which docs do you mean specifically.

doc.rust-lang.org used to show docs for old Rust versions in Google search results, but hopefully that has been fixed now. Do you still find docs for ancient Rust standard library?

docs.rs shows a warning when you view docs of a less-than-latest version. Whether a crate itself is relevant is a trickier question. If you view docs for failure, you'll get up-to-date info about how failure works, but not that you should be using anyhow or thiserror instead.

Then there's a bunch of 3rd party tutorials, StackOverflow answers all over the web. Rust project doesn't control these.

#4

there's a bunch of 3rd party tutorials, StackOverflow answers all over the web. Rust project doesn't control these. Blockquote

I avoid using any of this very unreliable info, and emphasize rust.org info when possible ..