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Developer documentation contains these broad areas:
* Conceptual overview of the product (what does it do? What is the
conceptual model?)
* Scenarios/examples/tutorial (How do I start? What are the basic steps?)
* Broad procedural guides (How do I write a GUI? How do I access files?
How do I do networking?)
* Reference (what is the syntax of the statements? What is the API?)
* Tools Reference (how do I use the compiler?)
Start with the fundamentals: who is the audience? what level of
technical expertise do they have? what level of domain expertise do they
have? where will they be accessing the documentation?
For example, if you are writing a developer's guide for a speech
application architecture, your audience will be software developers.
They have a lot of technical expertise, but they probably know very
little about speech user interfaces.
Developers often need to have the reference information at hand as they
work. You may need to have this information incorporated into the
integrated development environment (if you have one) as online help. You
almost certainly want it in an electronic form with a large index and
powerful search functions.
Good luck!
Joe
C Kwong wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm new to this list, and to technical writing. I've just gotten my first contract, and was told I'll need to prepare the company's first Developer Guide.
>
> I have searched a bit to see if I could locate anything on the web, but I'm not finding what I think I need. I'm hoping to find something that will provide me with chapters generally found in this type of document.
>
> Does anyone know of a web site that provides a pdf of their developer user guides? I'm really just looking for a reference point for me so I can at least set the book up.
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Carolyn
>
>
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