Docs for Developers: An Engineer's Field Guide to Technical Writing

Publisher's Page

Author: Jared Bhatti, David Nunez, Jen Lambourne, Zachary Sarah Corleissen, Heidi Waterhouse

Summary

How to write maintainable docs that help your customers use your software.

Excerpt

"Docs for Developers demystifies the process of creating great developer documentation, following a team of software developers as they work to launch a new product. At each step along the way, you learn through examples, templates, and principles how to create, measure, and maintain documentation, which you can adapt to the needs of your own organization."

Takeaways

This struck me as the devops of documentation - turn these high level ideas into something we can live in. On my To Read pile.

GitLab's Technical Writing Fundamentals course

Summary

Written to help contributors write and edit GitLab documentation. The first three parts are grammar and style guidance. Session 4 covers how to approach four topic types: concepts, tasks, references, and troubleshooting.

The page links to the recorded versions on YouTube.

Google's Tech Writing Resources for Developers

Summary

Google's Technical writing courses and resources for engineers and engineer-adjacent folks.

Excerpt

"This collection of courses and learning resources aims to improve your technical documentation. Learn how to plan and author technical documents."

How Not to Throw Up

Author: Michael Lopp

Summary

Practice endlessly and improvise. Practice beforehand until the content moves from the planning side of your brain to the other side.

During the presentation, adapt your manner to the the moment. Who's in the room? What's the energy level? Make room for them to participate.

Excerpt

"This article is about presentations, not content. Both are equally important, but I’m not here to help you write your content, I’m here to transform that content into a presentation that doesn’t suck."

"Confidence is going to come not when you memorize your slides, but when you move the content from one side of your brain to the other. Right now, your slides are sitting in the linear left side of your brain, the practical side. This is a fine place for the slides to be while you’re creating them, but before you get up on stage, you need to move them to the right side of your brain, the creative side. You need to be able to feel your slides."

Write, Speak, Code

Summary: - Write/Speak/Code promotes visibility for women and underrepresented groups through blogging, presenting, and contributing to open source.

There are several local chapters.

Recordings from the in-person conferences

Use the topic generation worksheet to brainstorm what to write or present about.

A timely link from the Technically Speaking newsletter : Scott Berkun on How to Write a Good Bio .

My designer coworker clued me in to submitting a photo that's double the final dimensions. If the final image size is 100x100 pixels, send a 200x200. It'll look good on a retina display.