Description

Book Synopsis

Learn to integrate programming with good documentation. This book teaches you the craft of documentation for each step in the software development lifecycle, from understanding your users'' needs to publishing, measuring, and maintaining useful developer documentation.

Well-documented projects save time for both developers on the project and users of the software. Projects without adequate documentation suffer from poor developer productivity, project scalability, user adoption, and accessibility. In short: bad documentation kills projects. 

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-tools you can adapt to the needs of your own organization.

What You''ll Learn


  • Table of Contents

    1. Getting Started

    2. Researching documentation

      1. Understanding your users

      2. Cultivating empathy

      3. Understanding user desires, user needs, and company needs

      4. Recruiting users for research

    4. Research methods

      1. Reading code comments

      2. Trying it out

      3. Friction logs

      4. Running diverse and inclusive focus groups and interviews

      5. User journey mapping

    6. Identifying and working with stakeholders

      1. Finding your experts

      2. Collaborative documentation development

    8. Learning from existing content

      1. The value of design documents

      2. Finding examples in industry

  • Designing documentation

    1. Defining your initial set of content

    2. Deciding your minimum viable documentation

    3. Drafting test and acceptance criteria

  • Understanding content types

  • Concepts, tutorials and reference documentation

  • Code comments

  • API specifications

    • READMEs

  • Guides

  • Release notes

  • Drafting documentation

    1. Setting yourself up for writing success

    2. Who is this for? Personas, requirements, content types

    3. Definition of done

    4. How to iterate

    Tools and tips for writing rough drafts

    1. Understanding your needs

    2. Choosing your writing tools (handwriting, text-only, productivity/measurement writing tools)

    3. “Hacks” to get started drafting content

  • Mechanics

  • Headings

  • Paragraphs

  • Lists

    • Notes and warnings

  • Conclusions/tests

  • Using templates to form drafts

    1. Purpose of a template

    2. How to derive a template from existing docs

    3. How to take templates into text

  • Gathering initial feedback

  • Feedback methods

  • Integrating feedback

  • Getting feedback from difficult contributors

    • Editing content for publication

    1. Determine destination

    2. Editing tools (Grammarly, linters, etc)

    3. Declaring good enough

  • Recap, strategies, and reassurance

    • Structuring sets of documentation

    1. Where content types live

    2. Concepts, tutorials and reference documentation

    3. Code comments

    4. API specifications

    5. READMEs

    6. Guides

    7. Release notes

  • Designing your information architecture

    1. Content information architecture styles

    2. Designing for search

    3. Creating clear, well-lit paths through content

  • User testing and maintenance

  • Planning for document automation

  • Integrating code samples and visual content

    1. Integrating code samples

    2. When and why to use code samples

    3. Creating concise, usable, maintainable samples

    4. Standardising your samples

  • Using visual content: Screenshots, diagrams, and videos

    1. When your documentation may need visual content

    2. Making your visual content accessible

    3. Integrating screenshots, diagrams

    4. Videos

  • Measuring documentation success

  • How documentation succeeds

  • Measuring different types of documentation quality

    1. Structural Quality

    2. Functional Quality

    3. Process Quality

  • Measuring what you want to change

    • Drawing conclusions from document metrics

  • Working with contributors

  • Defining how decisions are made

    1. Deciding on a governance structure

    2. Writing an effective Code of Conduct

  • Choosing a content licence

    1. Code licenses

    2. Content licences

    Building and enforcing a style guide

  • Editing submitted content and giving feedback

  • Setting acceptability criteria

  • Editing for accessibility and inclusion

  • Editing for internationalization and translation

  • Giving actionable feedback

  • Planning and running a document sprint

  • Maintaining documentation

  • Creating a content review processes

    1. Assigning document owners

    2. Performing freshness checks on content

    Responding to documentation issues

    1. Separating documentation issues from product issues

    2. Responding to users

  • Automating document maintenance

    1. Automating API and reference content

    2. Using doc linters

  • Deleting and archiving content

  • Wrapping up

Docs for Developers

Product form

£42.49

Includes FREE delivery

RRP £49.99 – you save £7.50 (15%)

Order before 4pm today for delivery by Wed 14 Jan 2026.

A Paperback by David Nunez, Sarah Corleissen, Jen Lambourne

Out of stock


    View other formats and editions of Docs for Developers by David Nunez

    Publisher: APress
    Publication Date: 1/1/2021 12:10:00 AM
    ISBN13: 9781484272169, 978-1484272169
    ISBN10: 1484272161
    Also in:
    Open source and other operating systems Writing and editing guides

    Description

    Book Synopsis

    Learn to integrate programming with good documentation. This book teaches you the craft of documentation for each step in the software development lifecycle, from understanding your users'' needs to publishing, measuring, and maintaining useful developer documentation.

    Well-documented projects save time for both developers on the project and users of the software. Projects without adequate documentation suffer from poor developer productivity, project scalability, user adoption, and accessibility. In short: bad documentation kills projects. 

    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-tools you can adapt to the needs of your own organization.

    What You''ll Learn


    • Table of Contents

      1. Getting Started

      2. Researching documentation

        1. Understanding your users

        2. Cultivating empathy

        3. Understanding user desires, user needs, and company needs

        4. Recruiting users for research

      4. Research methods

        1. Reading code comments

        2. Trying it out

        3. Friction logs

        4. Running diverse and inclusive focus groups and interviews

        5. User journey mapping

      6. Identifying and working with stakeholders

        1. Finding your experts

        2. Collaborative documentation development

      8. Learning from existing content

        1. The value of design documents

        2. Finding examples in industry

    • Designing documentation

      1. Defining your initial set of content

      2. Deciding your minimum viable documentation

      3. Drafting test and acceptance criteria

    • Understanding content types

    • Concepts, tutorials and reference documentation

    • Code comments

    • API specifications

      • READMEs

    • Guides

    • Release notes

    • Drafting documentation

      1. Setting yourself up for writing success

      2. Who is this for? Personas, requirements, content types

      3. Definition of done

      4. How to iterate

      Tools and tips for writing rough drafts

      1. Understanding your needs

      2. Choosing your writing tools (handwriting, text-only, productivity/measurement writing tools)

      3. “Hacks” to get started drafting content

    • Mechanics

    • Headings

    • Paragraphs

    • Lists

      • Notes and warnings

    • Conclusions/tests

    • Using templates to form drafts

      1. Purpose of a template

      2. How to derive a template from existing docs

      3. How to take templates into text

    • Gathering initial feedback

    • Feedback methods

    • Integrating feedback

    • Getting feedback from difficult contributors

      • Editing content for publication

      1. Determine destination

      2. Editing tools (Grammarly, linters, etc)

      3. Declaring good enough

    • Recap, strategies, and reassurance

      • Structuring sets of documentation

      1. Where content types live

      2. Concepts, tutorials and reference documentation

      3. Code comments

      4. API specifications

      5. READMEs

      6. Guides

      7. Release notes

    • Designing your information architecture

      1. Content information architecture styles

      2. Designing for search

      3. Creating clear, well-lit paths through content

    • User testing and maintenance

    • Planning for document automation

    • Integrating code samples and visual content

      1. Integrating code samples

      2. When and why to use code samples

      3. Creating concise, usable, maintainable samples

      4. Standardising your samples

    • Using visual content: Screenshots, diagrams, and videos

      1. When your documentation may need visual content

      2. Making your visual content accessible

      3. Integrating screenshots, diagrams

      4. Videos

    • Measuring documentation success

    • How documentation succeeds

    • Measuring different types of documentation quality

      1. Structural Quality

      2. Functional Quality

      3. Process Quality

    • Measuring what you want to change

      • Drawing conclusions from document metrics

    • Working with contributors

    • Defining how decisions are made

      1. Deciding on a governance structure

      2. Writing an effective Code of Conduct

    • Choosing a content licence

      1. Code licenses

      2. Content licences

      Building and enforcing a style guide

    • Editing submitted content and giving feedback

    • Setting acceptability criteria

    • Editing for accessibility and inclusion

    • Editing for internationalization and translation

    • Giving actionable feedback

    • Planning and running a document sprint

    • Maintaining documentation

    • Creating a content review processes

      1. Assigning document owners

      2. Performing freshness checks on content

      Responding to documentation issues

      1. Separating documentation issues from product issues

      2. Responding to users

    • Automating document maintenance

      1. Automating API and reference content

      2. Using doc linters

    • Deleting and archiving content

    • Wrapping up

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