RE: Writing a Developer's Guide

Subject: RE: Writing a Developer's Guide
From: Matthew Horn <mhorn -at- macromedia -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 09:09:11 -0500


[Someone wrote:]
> ...I would suggest that you work hard on the TOC, meaning, spend
> a minimum of 1-2 months on finalizing this....

I hope you are kidding!

Spend about 1-2 HOURS on a TOC, and then go talk to the folks that are going to use youur Developer's Guide. Say something like, "Hey, what are the pain points in using the XYZ System?"

After talking to half a dozen folks, you will learn what chapters need to be in there based on how they will use the doc, and that will help you structure the docs alot better.

Also, what kind of system might help to define the structure. Do you need to provide config info for system admins? How many different audiences are there? You might break it out into several books, like:

XYZ API Reference
Administering XYZ
Using XYZ
Getting Started with XYZ

HTH,

Matthew J. Horn
Sr. Technical Writer
< m a c r o m e d i a >


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