Writing the Darn Docs
summary
Argues that documentation is mandatory and part of the feature checklist, demonstrates fixing a bloated site by starting with a quickstart that gives a hello world quick win, shows tools and formats that actually help — Swagger/OpenAPI for APIs, Eleventy for static sites, CodePen/CodeSandbox for runnable samples, Prism/highlight.js for highlighting — and demands practical details: include single-line cross-platform commands, make code selectable and editable on GitHub, offer offline/PDF and an obvious edit/feedback path.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (17)
- 0:00Intro
- 1:04Confession
- 1:25Why I Struggle
- 2:33Pillsbury
- 7:47Open Source
- 9:10Documentation
- 10:18Making Documentation Required
- 12:01Automating Documentation
- 13:18What to Include
- 17:27When to Include
- 21:32Dont forget to get started
- 24:29HTML pages
- 28:39Things to avoid
- 35:32Jokes
- 37:17Github
- 40:45Right the Dots
- 41:15Questions
related talks
29mHumanizing Your Documentation
34mHumanizing Your Documentation
39mDevelopers Documentation: your hidden strength
21mWriting documentations that don't suck!
46mDocumentation That Runs: Bridging Code, Prose, and Interactivity
35mThe Art of Documentation and Readme.md for Open Source Projects
46mSave a Dev, Write Documentation!
38mThe Stuff You Don't Want to Write... Documentation