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Subject:RE: What are "advanced" API topics? From:"Lydia Wong" <lydiaw -at- fpoint -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 29 May 2001 17:53:26 -0400
I want to second one of Walden's topics:
> 4. Creating tutorials or creating walk-throughs--what's the difference
> (i.e., will a programmer ever really create code for the sake of
> learning a
> product)
This touches on a big problem in API docs: balancing the need for "fully
documenting" the API and our users' feverish requests for more code samples.
We writers at our company don't have enough time to do a lot of both of
these things, so we try to balance it. We haven't had too much time yet to
also work in creating tutorials, but have been considering doing so. Going
over this topic with seasoned professional API writers would be very
beneficial.
As for other topics, in part I agree with your comment, Susan, that
increasing your technical knowledge is the next step. Certainly a logical
next step for me (I've been an API writer for about 6-1/2 years) is to take
a C++ (or C#!!!) class. However, I did think of two other approaches to
future "advanced" topics:
- Comparing and contrasting the APIs for VB/C/C++/C#/Java/"what have you"
applications and components would be interesting to me. No, I wouldn't use
it in my daily work right now, but might in the future. I think it would
help broaden my understanding to understand the similarities and differences
between the APIs of applications and components that were produced from or
intended for these various development environments.
- A share and learn type of event. Talking with other local API writers has
been a tremendous resource for me. Their experiences working with
developers, trying tools I might not have tried or even know about, and
their understanding of my day-to-day work is very helpful and soothing! ; )
Seriously, those of us who might be called "advanced" can learn a lot from
each other, and a chat session, perhaps with short presentations on what we
do, what we've accomplished, what we're proud of, etc. would be immensely
helpful. And the networking benefits would be GREAT!
HTH! Good luck with planning something, Susan. I look forward to hearing
about what you decide to do.
Lydia : )
__________________
Lydia Wong
Technical Writer
FarPoint Technologies, Inc.
www.fpoint.com
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