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Jacob Kaplan-Moss recently wrote a series of really good articles about writing good documentation, I highly recommend reading them if you're about to embark on
by dirkstoop 17y ago
Jacob Kaplan-Moss recently wrote a series of really good articles about writing good documentation, I highly recommend reading them if you're about to embark on making technical docs:
http://jacobian.org/writing/great-documentation/ http://jacobian.org/writing/great-documentation/
He subdivides documentation as a whole into more or less the following three sections:
- Tutorials
- Topical Guides
- Reference
Screencasts can work for Tutorials, and they can be used for marketing purposes, in which they're closer to topical guides but probably won't provide as much depth as a textual guide could.
Imho. a screencast can be great as a marketing tool, but not so much as a learning tool.
- chasingsparks 17y agoJacob's docs were fantastic. I read them after they were posted on HN a few weeks back. The marketing aspect is pretty important. I was considering following his (my friend's) advice for that reason. Every week or so there seems to be a "Watch me build a blog in 5 minutes" screencast. I don't really think they are tutorials; they are closer to movie trailers.
- dirkstoop 17y agoI agree, I remember seeing some old RoR screencasts a couple years back, thinking: That editor is awesome. That's what made buy a copy of TextMate. (I still haven't ever used RoR tho)