5.2Why Docs-as-Code

Traditional documentation tools (Google Docs, Confluence, SharePoint) have a fundamental problem: they are disconnected from the codebase. When the code changes, the documentation does not automatically update. Nobody notices when a wiki page becomes inaccurate. There is no review process to catch errors. There is no version history that correlates with code changes.

Traditional Docs	Docs-as-Code
Stored in a wiki or shared drive	Stored in a Git repository alongside code
Edited through a web UI	Edited in a text editor or IDE
No review process	Pull request reviews, same as code
Version history is buried	Git history shows every change with context
No CI/CD	Automated builds, link checking, spell checking
Disconnected from code changes	Documentation changes in the same PR as code changes
Formatting varies wildly	Consistent formatting through linters and templates
Difficult to search across repos	Standard text files are searchable with any tool