[HN Gopher] Technical Writing for Developers ___________________________________________________________________ Technical Writing for Developers Author : makaimc Score : 86 points Date : 2022-07-15 17:31 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (css-tricks.com) (TXT) w3m dump (css-tricks.com) | kaycebasques wrote: | Technical writer with 10 years of experience. The way this post | starts off talking about grammar is a yellow flag for me, if not | red. Many developers/engineers get scared of technical writing | precisely because of their fear of not using grammar correctly. | Don't worry about that!! Just remember the cardinal rules of | technical writing: | | 1. Know your audience. Talk to them. Look at their Stack Overflow | questions. Analyze your documentation website usage. Run surveys. | Make it easy for them to provide feedback. | | 2. Write for that audience's needs. https://diataxis.fr is a | great start because those 4 needs cover 90% of the most common | developer needs. | | Documentation is a profoundly effective way to help people. Don't | worry about doing it perfectly. Just stay focused on being | helpful and of service. | rpdillon wrote: | > The way this post starts off talking about grammar is a | yellow flag for me, if not red. | | I thought the post was full of useful guidance. I'm not sure | what you mean with the comment about flag color. I tend to use | terms like "red flag" to mean "Something is seriously amiss; | perhaps I should look elsewhere for good advice.", but that | doesn't seem to apply here: covering grammar in an article | whose audience is people who write as part of their profession | seems completely appropriate. Conversely, I'm not sure I agree | with the advice that it's OK to simply not worry about it. | Perhaps it depends on the experience level the guide is | targeting. There are certainly more important aspects to | technical documentation than grammar! | | FWIW, I end up tripping over others' grammar errors far too | frequently for my own comfort, though. When I've asked, it's | not that they don't know in most cases, just that they don't | think it matters. I tend to care both because it reads more | smoothly, and because it indicates they paid attention to their | work (something I value greatly). Not definitive, but certainly | a strong signal. | | That said, my grammar is rarely perfect, and I strongly agree | that focusing on helping others is the real objective here. | kaycebasques wrote: | The post is called technical writing for _developers_ and | then the post starts off with the very topic that intimidates | and discourages a lot of developers / engineers: grammar. | Putting it at the top implies it is the most important idea | (see the journalism principle of the inverted pyramid for | rationale). That is the red flag. My usage of that term is | the same as yours. My point is precisely to not let worries | about incorrect grammar stop developers from trying to create | documentation. Focusing on grammar is textbook "missing the | forest for the trees". There are so many more important / | more fundamental ideas in technical writing than grammar. Of | course you will eventually need to learn grammar to become an | expert technical writer. | gaws wrote: | > Technical writer with 10 years of experience. | | What's an easy-to-remember trick for semicolon usage? | infogulch wrote: | Don't use it; or do, I'm not your English teacher. | xboxnolifes wrote: | Don't use it. | wmeredith wrote: | Haha. Well said. | | My mother has a PHD in English Literature and has taught | languages and writing in college for decades. She's also a | book editor and an author with published works from picture | books for children to graduate-level text books. She tells | me that the semi-colon's primary use is to let the reader | know that the author attended college. Just use a period. | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: | Consider when you have two distinct statements that are | related but the former does not necessarily lead into the | latter; a semicolon is appropriate in such an instance. | | Alternatively, just don't bother and use two sentences. | mcbishop wrote: | I like to use a long dash instead. It gives the two | statements more breathing room. | wmeredith wrote: | It's called an em dash. It's a dash the width of the "M" | glyph. | | https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/em-dash.html | BlargMcLarg wrote: | The pull request advice is strange in conjunction with several | suggestions which boil down to "make PRs smaller". | | > What types of changes does your code introduce to Appium? | | Surely that would be obvious from the connected issue. If you | suggest smaller PRs, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to | potentially combine feature changes, new features and bug fixes. | Which makes that part of the template redundant beyond the | exceptions. | | > - [ ] Lint and unit tests pass locally with my changes | | In the context of non-CI environments, I wouldn't trust anyone | who signed this to begin with. In the context of CI environments, | you can make this both uniform and automated. Why risk friction | where there doesn't need to be any? | | >Now, the programmer stereotype is that we're poor communicators | | Slight tangent: this stereotype _seriously_ needs to die. I 've | been hearing this since studying CS, and I still see both clients | and client-facing employees make basic mistakes they try to | hammer out of students in year 1-2, while continuing to use this | stereotype against programmers. It's become an excuse for client- | facing and coordinating types to push ICs to adapt to them | instead of the other way around. | zabzonk wrote: | My approach to tech writing (of which I have done a lot) is to | pick an existing style you like and follow that. For example, | when I was writing the docs for the API for a multi-site library | we were providing I did it in the Win32 help-file format that MS | used. This was a good format, and we were MSs auditors at the | time so no-one could complain. I did it with a bunch of Word | styles. | | But of course content is far more important than format. IMHO, if | you are not a good English writer, you are probably not a good | dev. | NithurM wrote: | Thanks for sharing. | turadg wrote: | How much should someone documenting an API be able to use it? | | I've been interviewing for a technical writer and some very | experienced people, who seem to be greater at the job of | Technical Writer, don't have basic coding proficiency. | | If my org needs a writer who can code too, should we be trying to | find a _developer_ who wants to write too? Coding and writing | seem like different careers paths so are we looking for a | unicorn? | srdixon wrote: | >Comments can link back to the source | | Big fan of using comments to point back to the source, that has | saved me a lot of time of trying to figure out why my past self | made those particular change | nixcraft wrote: | Technical Writing Courses from Google | https://developers.google.com/tech-writing is good too. | lelandfe wrote: | Anyone got some favorite examples of great technical writing? | | Stripe gets a lot of love, but I think React's tutorials are also | wonderful: https://reactjs.org/docs/hello-world.html | | They did a stellar job of slowly building technical concepts | before hitting you with bigger concepts like managing state. | deckard1 wrote: | I've always been fond of Svelte. Their reference docs are | great, but their tutorial really shines: | https://svelte.dev/tutorial/basics. Each step provides a | working example next to the documentation, allowing you to | figure it out before clicking the "Show me" button for help. | simonw wrote: | I really liked the Just README recently: | https://github.com/casey/just/blob/master/README.md | sam1r wrote: | I was looking for a table of contents, and eventually | realized the hint pointing to the top left. | | Really simple, minimal way to handle your table of contents | inline, versus constantly updating links at the top of the | page. | azemetre wrote: | I think the Cypress documentation is absolutely great: | | https://docs.cypress.io/ | | One of the better things about cypress are how they create so | many how-to guides for a variety of scenarios. Take | implementing Cypress into a CI runners, they have guides on how | to effectively use it nearly everywhere: | | https://docs.cypress.io/guides/continuous-integration/ci-pro... | tusslewake wrote: | Worth mentioning this great book on the subject published last | year: | | https://docsfordevelopers.com/ | bryanrasmussen wrote: | As someone who is a pretty good writer, with a long career, I've | never experienced any project or workplace actually caring about | my ability to write or rewarding me for it (beyond some lip | service) | madeofpalk wrote: | I think that good writing is one of those things that people | don't consciously realise. Just like actually good UI. | joegahona wrote: | Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31859040 | ericholscher wrote: | This is a great post. Wonderful cheat sheet for lots of various | writing areas in tech. | | There's also lots of great content coming out of the Write the | Docs community, including 10 years of conference talks: | https://www.writethedocs.org/topics/ | | Disclaimer: I'm involved with the project, but lots of folks have | done good work putting great content out there. | infogulch wrote: | See also: | | Writing: A misunderstood activity | 144 points | 3 days ago | 64 | comments | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32043923 ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-15 23:00 UTC)