Completing software: Material for mkdocs goes maintenance mode

Mkdocs is a very popular library for writing static documentation sites with python, and Material for Mkdocs is the de-facto standard theme to apply. With over 71,000 people stating they use the theme, it was a success both in how it was able to generate sponsers for an “insiders” track, and in general usage. Now, the creators are moving on to something new, and in doing so, they announced the project is going into maintenance mode. Announcing that a project is finished is always a hard choice. In this case, I think it was the perfect one.

In a world of continuous delivery and deployment, it can be tempting to think that we should always be improving or adding features. Many open source repositories allow users to give feedback or suggest features for future development, and someone always wants something that isn’t possible in the current version. When constantly implementing new features, other priorities may fall by the wayside, including making the code more efficient, documentation, or tidying up old issues and PRs.

Many projects would benefit from stating a defined list of things they are going to aim to do from the get go, and keeping it at that. It could be as simple as a single sentence; “This project will allow users to convert jpg files to png files in a simple command”. An added benefit of this is that the API tends to be a lot more stable, if you keep the features targeted, breaking changes don’t have to appear as often.

For many software categories, there will come a point where the problem is essentially solved, and the difference between libraries or products becomes negligible. Static documentation sites are one such example. There are hundreds of libraries to make documentation, and they have essentially the same core feature set. Instead of trying to continuously reinvent the wheel, it may make sense to set our sights on the next challenge. For the material for mkdocs folks, I hope that they have fun with their next endeavor. If you have ever tried the theme, now you have all of the insider features to play with!