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Everyone knows how important documentation is -- for a project to grow past a certain point, it's a must-have. However, almost every software project of any size nowadays comes with at least a README file.

When did including a README file (specifically with that name) first become commonplace? It appears the first BSD kernel had a "READ_ME" file, so it must be pre-1977. But at least in the software packages listed here, it's not universal.

tonysdg
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  • Almost everything can be found on Wikipedia these days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/README however it is a question how reliable that information is. I personally think that as soon as file systems were invented, some kind of README file must have appeared. – Anonymous Mar 23 '18 at 07:55
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    @Anonymous The Wikipedia article you link to answers the question with "It is unclear when the convention began, ...", so actually not at all. – tofro Mar 23 '18 at 09:32
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    @tofro that's why it is not an answer, but comment :) in general this question will not have right answer unless someone will stand up and say "I was the first". "Read me" type documents existed from the ancient ages, and must have appeared as soon as file system files were invented. – Anonymous Mar 23 '18 at 09:52
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    @Anonymous I was a bit confused as you didn't bother to mention what Wikipedia actually says. "... it is a bit questionable how reliable that information ["we don't know"] is" - I'd say, that's very reliable. – tofro Mar 23 '18 at 09:58
  • @tofro it is a little offtopic: information in Wikipedia is NOT reliable by design, however makes significant effort to be. I found issues in its articles out many times, and academia hardly accepts Wikipedia as a source of the information for research. You may consider Wikipedia as a great source for initial research. – Anonymous Mar 23 '18 at 10:20
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    @Anonymous Well, "We don't know" is 100% reliable in my opinion ;) – tofro Mar 23 '18 at 10:56
  • Here's the first historic record of a README file: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/76/6e/f0/766ef076c319fc677d55c6085b86b7a3.jpg ;-) – Stéphane Gourichon Mar 23 '18 at 21:40
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    This has been discussed here: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/96966/origin-of-readme – Thomas Mar 25 '18 at 17:51
  • Any chance a mod can mark this as a duplicate of the question that @Thomas is pointing at? I consider that as good an answer as any. – tonysdg Mar 29 '18 at 01:16
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    Cross-site duplicates is not possible within the SE framework. A question can only be a duplicate of another question on the same site. – user Oct 20 '18 at 18:33
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    Is this literally asking about files called README, or the concept? TOPS-10 had "beware" files, which described what was changed. The convention was a file named with a .BWR extension. – dave Oct 26 '18 at 01:05
  • @dave: I was asking about the concept back when I wrote it, so that would definitely apply IMO. If that goes back further than the top answer in the question Thomas linked above, I encourage you to answer there (and here if you so desire) :) – tonysdg Oct 26 '18 at 22:31
  • Unfortunately the oldest beware file I can find on my simh TOPS-10 system is only from 1975, which is not as old as some of the examples from Thomas's link. It's DSKRAT.BWR[10,7], titled DSKRAT BEWARE FILE. DSKRAT seems to be a disk scavenger (lost-file recovery) program. – dave Oct 27 '18 at 01:53
  • Github is most likely the primary driving force today as they automatically render a README.md file when viewing a directory. – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen Feb 06 '19 at 21:46

2 Answers2

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This file for some PDP-10 software is from 1974 and called "README.TXT":

http://pdp-10.trailing-edge.com/decus_20tap3_198111/01/decus/20-0079/readme.txt.html

user
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    I like how they had to explain what a README file is. – Leo B. Feb 08 '19 at 17:32
  • DECUS is DEC User's Group, they used to gather yearly and did share software by dropping off tapes at the beginning of the event, which volunteers compiled and copied, to be picked up at the end of the event. – vonbrand Mar 02 '21 at 23:57
  • @LeoB. when there are 16 README files on a tape, and people get sloppy about copying, it's good practice to tell people what the README is describing. – RonJohn Mar 29 '23 at 08:04
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Regarding "specifically with that name" part: as "README" is an obvious play on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland "Eat me" and "Drink me", this kind of frivolity could unlikely originate from a commercially distributed product.

The point being that a BSD distribution is a probable origin, soon after followed by commercial vendors, as an "established practice".

Leo B.
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    I am not convinced. Firstly, I don't believe that commercial distributions would somehow not engage in frivolity. Secondly, AFAIK the first BSD was in 1978, which is a pretty late date. – dave Feb 08 '19 at 03:33
  • The other answer gives an earlier date, 1974, but also from a non-commercial distribution, DEC Users Group. Also to note is the explanation ([README.TXT is the DOC file for SPICE/SINC/SLIC]) at the beginning of the file. That likely indicates that the word README" was a novelty then. – Leo B. Feb 08 '19 at 05:43
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    The premise here, however, is that commercial software was not prone to frivolous naming. That does not ring true to me (as a long-time user and programmer of such software). – dave Feb 08 '19 at 13:40
  • @another-dave Rather, not prone to originating frivolous naming, at least not in the 70s. Computer companies were still all suit-and-tie back then, weren't they? – Leo B. Feb 08 '19 at 17:30
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    Not in the corner of DEC I inhabited in the later half of the 1970s. Prior to that I used a DEC-10 system whose OS included command PLEASE (message to operator), GRIPE (lodge complaint, presumably about something not working), and FUDGE (never did work that one out). Those sound at least as frivolous as 'README' to me. And of course there's the response to 'MAKE LOVE', but that was likely an import. – dave Feb 09 '19 at 00:48
  • No need for frivolity when explicit "README" is what you need. More importantly, your "answer" is pure speculation. – RonJohn Mar 29 '23 at 08:00