> The YouTube video that shows you installing the IDE is superior to one that doesn't

I disagree.

That's assuming that your time is infinite, the user time is infinite and you are writing a tutorial about everything.

It's usually not the case, the best documentation I have found is the kind that focus on what it is about and only that.

It doesn't imply that an introduction is not necessary, it implies that you will talk about what's in the title of the document and only that. You have to assume a certain level of knowledge, you gotta stop somewhere and say "they must know this already or this is not for them" otherwise any documentation should include a chapter on how to download the software you are about to install and how to, why not?, connect to a WI-FI network. "A tutorial that talks about it is superior to one that doesn't" isn't it?

YouTube videos do that because the algorithm rewards longer videos, tech writers to that because it makes the final document larger and larger is always better than smaller, if you are paid for the words you write.

The laziest documentation I have found is the one that starts from the origin of the universe and it only resolves in the last 5 paragraphs, "drawing an howl" style, even though it should only be about drawing the damn howl.

One infamous example is Coursera coursers, each one of them presents the same exact intros, like if it's Java or Scala, they start on how to install Intellij Idea and the first assignment is compile a project and send it to show you understood how it is done. Except the course is called something like "Writing highly concurrent distributed systems in Scala", it is marked as an advanced specialization and it makes no sense to take it if you don't know how to install an IDE. But even assuming it happens, it could be easily solved by an FAQ. And BTW you have to complete the first assignment even if this is the nth course you're taking on the subject, you already installed Intellij, already compiled a project and already completed the assignment n minus 1 other times.

Do you also believe that teaching people how to drive a car should start from how to buy one?

> what you will find is the user will run into a problem that the two separate documents didn't consider when taken together.

the opposite is usually true in my experience.

You will find that most of the times the people that are actually interested in the documentation, will be much better off with a more succinct version of the same document.

> If you start getting fancy and make 50 different documents for different steps, because "logically" that makes more sense,

Nobody said 50 different documents. Just separated the "tools setup" from the rest of the documentation or put it in an appendices at the end.

The "setup" section in most Github repos are very welcome, if they are in the in the form

* do this
* do that
* run `docker run ... -p ...`

if they were of the form "Docker is an open source platform that enables developers to build, deploy, run, update and manage containers ..." and then went on with the instructions on how to install it on every single platform, I would close the browser's tab and look somewhere else. Just refer to another document that explains it all in details for those who might need it and be done with it.