4 ms·

I wonder if JetBrains is going for the professional technical writer (TW) market outside of software development. Think aviation, military, manufacturing, etc.

I wonder if JetBrains is going for the professional technical writer (TW) market outside of software development. Think aviation, military, manufacturing, etc. They seem to use paid writing suites quite a lot. MadCap Flare is a name you hear often. TW teams writing in B2C contexts often use these suites too. JetBrains markets it as docs-as-code though, a concept that software-development-focused technical writers would care most about. There is also the angle that a lot of engineers don't want to deal with any bullshit setting up a docs authoring env. If this tool makes it easier for them to contribute docs, I could see that as a way to get solid adoption. The docs quality automation sounds interesting. Couldn't find a link that explains more. (I'm on mobile.) (I've been a TW for ~10 years.)

pbowyer 3y ago
> They seem to use paid writing suites quite a lot. MadCap Flare is a name you hear often. TW teams writing in B2C contexts often use these suites too. I didn't know these suites existed. What other ones are popular, and what's their selling point?
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  MadCap is the big one I hear about, then maybe FrameMaker at a distant second and plain old Microsoft Word. As a software technical writer who loves docs-as-code I don't know how the writers in manufacturing and aviation and whatnot put up with those tools...
  - mjoneill 3y ago
    MadCap Flare was an awesome product. It grew out of the old BlueSky "RoboHelp" suite (which was also awesome) and could be used to output to many different formats (online help, web help, print docs, confluence). It's been a while, but I think you could even use FrameMaker to author and still use Flare to transform output to all its supported formats. It's been a long time since I immersed myself in this world, so apologies if my memory is less than perfect.
  - mjoneill 3y ago
    BTW: If you want to connect, there's a professional society for the discipline: Society for Technical Communication (STC). https://www.stc.org https://www.stc.org They have local chapters in many geographies. Their annual conference is usually well attended and covers topics related to technical writing from Help Authoring to Content Strategy to Content Marketing to Agile.
- zapperdulchen 3y ago
  There's a whole niche: DITA CCMS like Tridion or Ixiasoft. Or more pragmatic European CCMS solutions such as SCHEMA ST4, Cosima, TIM-RS or Paligo.
- ReleaseCandidat 3y ago
  Our in-house translators use Trados https://www.trados.com/ https://www.trados.com/
  - petepete 3y ago
    Ah, Trados. I love how on their homepage there's a 1m20s video that shows not a single shot of the godawful UI.
- mjoneill 3y ago
  Def. give a look at DITA...Darwin Information Typing Architecture is not a tool so much as an approach/framework that other products can support. Many modern tooling supports some of the DITA concepts, even if they aren't officially DITA tools. On the other end, much of documentation has moved into the Wiki space. For a long time, Confluence was making some serious inroads there. Most professional tooling these days also emphasizes content reuse, and sometimes (if you are lucky) separating content from presentation. Opinions come from experience: I spent many years in tech writing at both fortune 50's and startups, but have since moved on to other disciplines I enjoy more.
mkl 3y ago
There's more about the quality features at https://www.jetbrains.com/help/writerside/inspectopedia.html https://www.jetbrains.com/help/writerside/inspectopedia.html and a little at https://www.jetbrains.com/help/writerside/documentation-quality.html https://www.jetbrains.com/help/writerside/documentation-qual....
pjmlp 3y ago
For that they would need to support DITA and Docbook, which while not fancy around here, I imagine they are pretty much what most of those markets still use. Markdown for those markets just won't do it. Tooling like Oxygen XML still seems to be quite common.
- kaycebasques 3y ago
  The fact they mention XML a few times on the page prompted that idea. But on closer read it seems that they're using XML for some narrow needs and do not plan on general XML-heavy workflows.
Titiriti59nj 3y ago
> wonder if JetBrains is going for the professional technical writer (TW) market outside of software development. Think aviation, military, manufacturing, etc Is there a market? From my experience, professional writers are just low paid freelancers. Using an free editor, to collect data into AI, to replace them, seems like best business plan!
- mjoneill 3y ago
  > from my experience, professional writers are just low paid freelancers It tends to depend on the company...and what the writers are building, and of course, what the product is. Some products do not lend themselves well to a freelance approach, as the domain and product specific knowledge is quite high. Other products have very specific regulatory compliance obligations that also do not lend themselves readily to freelancing (unless you are talking about long term contractors with 2+ year commitments, etc....
- applied_heat 3y ago
  Enjoy your airplane flights where all the pilot manuals and checklists are written by AI
jjice 3y ago
More so just a question for you, but how does one get into or at least improve their technical writing as a software engineer? Any feedback? I've found met with questions from customers that my writing wasn't able to make clear and that's something I'd like to work on.
- datadrivenangel 3y ago
  Review every written piece against the goal of the writing. What is the purpose of a document in terms of the reader. What should a reader take away from a paragraph or a sentence. Iterate until this becomes second nature.
- kaycebasques 3y ago
  Hi, I have two suggestions. First, I sense that you should keep work on improving your mastery of English grammar. I have a few resources for that: * Technical Writing One by Google [1] is a pretty good self-study course for practicing the fundamentals of writing mechanics. * Find some kind of program that forces you to write and get feedback on your writing. English classes at community colleges, for example. There are probably a lot of online resources, too. The best way to improve your writing is to practice and get feedback; just like the best way to learn about programming is to create programs. * A Writer's Reference [2] is a canonical reference text for looking up grammar rules. I know this is boring work but it really is 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 https://developers.google.com/tech-writing/one [2] https://www.amazon.com/Writers-Reference-Diana-Hacker/dp/1319057446 https://www.amazon.com/Writers-Reference-Diana-Hacker/dp/131... [3] https://www.amazon.com/Docs-Developers-Engineers-Technical-Writing/dp/1484272161 https://www.amazon.com/Docs-Developers-Engineers-Technical-W...

pbowyer 3y ago

> They seem to use paid writing suites quite a lot. MadCap Flare is a name you hear often. TW teams writing in B2C contexts often use these suites too. I didn't know these suites existed. What other ones are popular, and what's their selling point?

spondylosaurus 3y ago
MadCap is the big one I hear about, then maybe FrameMaker at a distant second and plain old Microsoft Word. As a software technical writer who loves docs-as-code I don't know how the writers in manufacturing and aviation and whatnot put up with those tools...
- mjoneill 3y ago
  MadCap Flare was an awesome product. It grew out of the old BlueSky "RoboHelp" suite (which was also awesome) and could be used to output to many different formats (online help, web help, print docs, confluence). It's been a while, but I think you could even use FrameMaker to author and still use Flare to transform output to all its supported formats. It's been a long time since I immersed myself in this world, so apologies if my memory is less than perfect.
- mjoneill 3y ago
  BTW: If you want to connect, there's a professional society for the discipline: Society for Technical Communication (STC). https://www.stc.org https://www.stc.org They have local chapters in many geographies. Their annual conference is usually well attended and covers topics related to technical writing from Help Authoring to Content Strategy to Content Marketing to Agile.
zapperdulchen 3y ago
There's a whole niche: DITA CCMS like Tridion or Ixiasoft. Or more pragmatic European CCMS solutions such as SCHEMA ST4, Cosima, TIM-RS or Paligo.
ReleaseCandidat 3y ago
Our in-house translators use Trados https://www.trados.com/ https://www.trados.com/
- petepete 3y ago
  Ah, Trados. I love how on their homepage there's a 1m20s video that shows not a single shot of the godawful UI.
mjoneill 3y ago
Def. give a look at DITA...Darwin Information Typing Architecture is not a tool so much as an approach/framework that other products can support. Many modern tooling supports some of the DITA concepts, even if they aren't officially DITA tools. On the other end, much of documentation has moved into the Wiki space. For a long time, Confluence was making some serious inroads there. Most professional tooling these days also emphasizes content reuse, and sometimes (if you are lucky) separating content from presentation. Opinions come from experience: I spent many years in tech writing at both fortune 50's and startups, but have since moved on to other disciplines I enjoy more.

mkl 3y ago

There's more about the quality features at https://www.jetbrains.com/help/writerside/inspectopedia.html https://www.jetbrains.com/help/writerside/inspectopedia.html and a little at https://www.jetbrains.com/help/writerside/documentation-quality.html https://www.jetbrains.com/help/writerside/documentation-qual....

pjmlp 3y ago

For that they would need to support DITA and Docbook, which while not fancy around here, I imagine they are pretty much what most of those markets still use. Markdown for those markets just won't do it. Tooling like Oxygen XML still seems to be quite common.

kaycebasques 3y ago
The fact they mention XML a few times on the page prompted that idea. But on closer read it seems that they're using XML for some narrow needs and do not plan on general XML-heavy workflows.

Titiriti59nj 3y ago

> wonder if JetBrains is going for the professional technical writer (TW) market outside of software development. Think aviation, military, manufacturing, etc Is there a market? From my experience, professional writers are just low paid freelancers. Using an free editor, to collect data into AI, to replace them, seems like best business plan!

mjoneill 3y ago
> from my experience, professional writers are just low paid freelancers It tends to depend on the company...and what the writers are building, and of course, what the product is. Some products do not lend themselves well to a freelance approach, as the domain and product specific knowledge is quite high. Other products have very specific regulatory compliance obligations that also do not lend themselves readily to freelancing (unless you are talking about long term contractors with 2+ year commitments, etc....
applied_heat 3y ago
Enjoy your airplane flights where all the pilot manuals and checklists are written by AI

jjice 3y ago

More so just a question for you, but how does one get into or at least improve their technical writing as a software engineer? Any feedback? I've found met with questions from customers that my writing wasn't able to make clear and that's something I'd like to work on.

datadrivenangel 3y ago
Review every written piece against the goal of the writing. What is the purpose of a document in terms of the reader. What should a reader take away from a paragraph or a sentence. Iterate until this becomes second nature.
kaycebasques 3y ago
Hi, I have two suggestions. First, I sense that you should keep work on improving your mastery of English grammar. I have a few resources for that: * Technical Writing One by Google [1] is a pretty good self-study course for practicing the fundamentals of writing mechanics. * Find some kind of program that forces you to write and get feedback on your writing. English classes at community colleges, for example. There are probably a lot of online resources, too. The best way to improve your writing is to practice and get feedback; just like the best way to learn about programming is to create programs. * A Writer's Reference [2] is a canonical reference text for looking up grammar rules. I know this is boring work but it really is 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 https://developers.google.com/tech-writing/one [2] https://www.amazon.com/Writers-Reference-Diana-Hacker/dp/1319057446 https://www.amazon.com/Writers-Reference-Diana-Hacker/dp/131... [3] https://www.amazon.com/Docs-Developers-Engineers-Technical-Writing/dp/1484272161 https://www.amazon.com/Docs-Developers-Engineers-Technical-W...