Docs for Developers
by Jared Bhatti, Heidi Waterhouse · first published 2021
57% recommend43% neutral
Learn to integrate the craft of writing with the craft of programming. This book teaches you how to create documentation for each step in the software development lifecycle, from understanding your user’s needs to publishing, measuring, and maintaining useful developer documentation. A well-documented project saves time for both developers on the project and users of the software, and projects without adequate documentation suffer from poor developer productivity, project scalability, user adoption, and accessibility. In short: bad documentation kills projects. Docs for Developers demys
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…debanjan16 for constructing a well-formulated question that delivered lots of high-quality additions to my "to read" list! Strangely enough nothing is coming to mind for my field, technical writing. Docs for Developers is great at covering the end-to-end basics of a high-quality documentation process. But I feel like there is some book out there that has inspired me to think more deeply about how to effectively communicate…
on “Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field of study?” ↗Regarding documentation, check out Docs for Developers by Bhatti et al. The subtitle describes the book as "an engineer's field guide to technical writing" and that's exactly what the book is. It provides you a detailed step-by-step overview of what high-quality…
on “Ask HN: Books to read when you transform from SWE into SWE Management?” ↗Please check these two books on technical writing from Springer. 1) Docs for Developers: An Engineer’s Field Guide to Technical Writing https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4842-7217-6 2) Requirements Writing for System Engineering: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4842-2099-3…
on “Ask HN: Any great books about technical writing?” ↗…the foundation of communicating clearly. After you've got those fundamentals down, you'll want to learn about the processes that technical writers follow to figure out what docs customers really need. Docs For Developers [3] is a pretty solid overview of the process that many TWs follow. [1] https://developers.google.com/tech-writing/one [2] https://www.amazon.com/Writers-Reference-Diana-Hacker/dp/131... [3] https://www.amazon.com/Docs-Developers-Engineers-Technical-W...
on “Writerside – a new technical writing environment from JetBrains” ↗…my job, and I've been looking to buy some hard copies of technical writing books so I can refer to them easily during the workday. And to intimidate my enemies on Zoom, of course. So far my go-tos are "Docs for Developers" and the classic "Elements of Style", which complement each other well, covering the newest documentation strategies and the oldest nonfiction writing strategies, respectively. I'd really like to start…
on “Ask HN: Any great books about technical writing?” ↗Check this new book on technical writing for developers. Docs for Developers: An Engineer’s Field Guide to Technical Writing https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4842-7217-6
on “Ask HN: How to level up your technical writing?” ↗My top recommendations are "Docs for Developers" and "The Product is Docs". I listed more books about docs and general writing, and TW courses and podcasts in this post: https://lorenaciutacu.com/resources-technical-writers/
on “Ask HN: Any great books about technical writing?” ↗You can read it with your ACM/O'Reilly subscription => https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/docs-for-developers/978...
on “Docs for Developers: An Engineer’s Field Guide to Technical Writing” ↗…know for some personal coaching... happy to let you know how that goes after this weekend :) My partial reading list while I wrap up at $dayJob: - Corporate Rebels - Secrets of Productive People - Docs for Developers - Influence, new and expanded (kinda meh so far) - Cult of the customer - 48 Laws of power (kinda gross, honestly) Finished books I would gladly re-read - Disruption - Peopleware - Never split…
on “I'm an engineer that needs to sell my services. Any good books on sales?” ↗Docs for Developers: An Engineer’s Field Guide to Technical Writing https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4842-7217-6
on “Ask HN: How do you upskill your teams technical writing?” ↗