An Empirical Study on README contents for JavaScript Packages
This provides empirical insights for developers on README best practices, but it is incremental as it builds on existing documentation studies.
The study analyzed the contents of 43,900 JavaScript package README files to identify common themes like usage, install, and license, and found differences between application-specific and library-based packages in including themes such as options.
Contemporary software projects often utilize a README.md to share crucial information such as installation and usage examples related to their software. Furthermore, these files serve as an important source of updated and useful documentation for developers and prospective users of the software. Nonetheless, both novice and seasoned developers are sometimes unsure of what is required for a good README file. To understand the contents of a README, we investigate the contents of 43,900 JavaScript packages. Results show that these packages contain common content themes (i.e., usage, install and license). Furthermore, we find that application-specific packages more frequently included content themes such as options, while library-based packages more frequently included other specific content themes (i.e., install and license).