1.
A Documentation
Crash Course
…for developers
LinuxCon, Berlin
@chrischinch

2.
What’s one of the first
things you look at
with a new project?

3.
• W
• W
• W
ho are you writing for?
hat are they trying to achieve?
hy are you writing this?
Youhavehopefullyansweredthesebeforedevelopment…

4.
Assume nothing

5.
Refine your
concept(s)

6.
API docs are (not)
always enough

7.
It’s not a manual

8.
Interactivity

9.
Language
Selected highlights in (mostly) English,
sorry…

10.
Involve the reader

11.
“function takes
parameter x and
returns value y”

12.
“You can use
function to return
the value of y based
on x”

13.
Passive vs Active

14.
“function can be
used to return the
number of y based
on x”

15.
“Holiday approval
will be notified in
due course”

16.
Keep it short

17.
“If I Had More
Time, I Would Have
Written a Shorter
Letter”
– Pascal, Locke, Franklin, Thoreau, Cicero, Wilson?

18.
Structure

19.
Consistency

20.
Tools
In brief…

21.
Format and editing

22.
Management and
rendering

23.
Testing, linting and
automating

24.
Write your own

25.
Want More?
• www.meetup.com/Write-The-Docs-
Berlin
• slack.writethedocs.org

26.
–Me (maybe)
“Documentation
isn’t just for
developers”

27.
Thank You!
Chris Ward
contentful.com
gregariousmammal.com
@chrischinch
I have stickers and merchandise!