Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
Writing for developers workshop
Search
Alice Bartlett
January 24, 2019
Technology
1
190
Writing for developers workshop
Alice Bartlett
January 24, 2019
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Alice Bartlett
See All by Alice Bartlett
The Journey of a Byline
alicebartlett
0
170
Getting more from Git
alicebartlett
0
1k
presentations_ft.pdf
alicebartlett
1
320
All Day Hey! - Can't you make it more like bootstrap?
alicebartlett
2
2k
Case study on the FT's Responsive Image Service
alicebartlett
0
500
Git for Humans
alicebartlett
66
33k
FT Accessibility 101
alicebartlett
2
580
Can't you make it more like Bootstrap? (CASCADIA CONF)
alicebartlett
1
1.1k
Can't you make it more like Bootstrap?
alicebartlett
1
430
Other Decks in Technology
See All in Technology
飲食店データの分析事例とそれを支えるデータ基盤
kimujun
0
160
エンジニア人生の拡張性を高める 「探索型キャリア設計」の提案
tenshoku_draft
1
130
iOSチームとAndroidチームでブランチ運用が違ったので整理してます
sansantech
PRO
0
150
リンクアンドモチベーション ソフトウェアエンジニア向け紹介資料 / Introduction to Link and Motivation for Software Engineers
lmi
4
300k
インフラとバックエンドとフロントエンドをくまなく調べて遅いアプリを早くした件
tubone24
1
430
Application Development WG Intro at AppDeveloperCon
salaboy
0
190
これまでの計測・開発・デプロイ方法全部見せます! / Findy ISUCON 2024-11-14
tohutohu
3
370
組織成長を加速させるオンボーディングの取り組み
sudoakiy
2
210
rootlessコンテナのすゝめ - 研究室サーバーでもできる安全なコンテナ管理
kitsuya0828
3
390
RubyのWebアプリケーションを50倍速くする方法 / How to Make a Ruby Web Application 50 Times Faster
hogelog
3
950
開発生産性を上げながらビジネスも30倍成長させてきたチームの姿
kamina_zzz
2
1.7k
The Role of Developer Relations in AI Product Success.
giftojabu1
0
140
Featured
See All Featured
Navigating Team Friction
lara
183
14k
The Cult of Friendly URLs
andyhume
78
6k
Fantastic passwords and where to find them - at NoRuKo
philnash
50
2.9k
Rails Girls Zürich Keynote
gr2m
94
13k
ピンチをチャンスに:未来をつくるプロダクトロードマップ #pmconf2020
aki_iinuma
109
49k
What's in a price? How to price your products and services
michaelherold
243
12k
Building a Modern Day E-commerce SEO Strategy
aleyda
38
6.9k
Happy Clients
brianwarren
98
6.7k
Understanding Cognitive Biases in Performance Measurement
bluesmoon
26
1.4k
RailsConf 2023
tenderlove
29
900
Documentation Writing (for coders)
carmenintech
65
4.4k
Learning to Love Humans: Emotional Interface Design
aarron
273
40k
Transcript
Alice Bartlett Principal Engineer, Customer Products team @alicebartlett Writing for
developers
@alicebartlett Disclaimer: I AM NOT A WRITER
1. Why writing is important for developers 2. Tips for
writing well 3. A exercise!
1. Why writing is important for developers @alicebartlett
@alicebartlett This should be obvious: part of being an effective
developer is being able to communicate ideas and instructions well
@alicebartlett A useful tool for communicating is writing!
@alicebartlett Writing clearly and concisely can be difficult, but the
payoff is huge
@alicebartlett Writing clear and concise documentation is going to be
strategically important this year.
@alicebartlett This year we have more code than ever to
maintain and so people are going to need to work on things they haven’t worked on before
@alicebartlett If these codebases are well documented the it’s a
lot easier to work on them
@alicebartlett Writing well doesn’t need to be onerous. It requires
a bit of effort, but luckily there are a lot of tools around.
@alicebartlett Good writing is clear and concise.
Clear writing is unambiguous. The reader understands precisely what the
writer intended. @alicebartlett
Concise writing is short. The writer communicated her idea in
as few words as possible thereby not wasting the reader’s time. @alicebartlett
1. Why writing is important for developers 2. Some tips
for writing well 3. A exercise!
2. Some tips for writing well @alicebartlett
@alicebartlett
Grammatical correctness is important but it is not everything @alicebartlett
Its, it’s, there, their, they’re. It’s easy to get hung up on apostrophe usage or spelling but there are more important things to focus on
@alicebartlett These minor errors can be a distraction from thinking
further about the words you’ve chosen and how well they're communicating your thoughts and intent
@alicebartlett Ideally your words would be good and your grammar
would be flawless. But grammar won’t save you if the communication of your idea is poor in other ways
@alicebartlett And, yes, there are cases where an apostrophe can
change the meaning of a sentence.
Structure things for skim readers @alicebartlett Use headings, tables, lists,
asides, bold, emphasis…
Don’t bury the lede @alicebartlett Put the most important information
at the top of the section. Don’t make people read a whole paragraph to understand the most important part
Headings should give you the gist @alicebartlett They should summarise
in a single sentence what follows
@alicebartlett How do I raise a ticket? // information on
how to raise a ticket Raise a ticket in Jira // information on how to raise a ticket
@alicebartlett How do I raise a ticket? // information on
how to raise a ticket Raise a ticket in Jira // information on how to raise a ticket // Better // OK
@alicebartlett Be conversational It’s OK to use contractions like “there’s”
instead of “there is”. Our documentation can be useful without being formal.
@alicebartlett Be conversational Unless you’re writing a formal document such
as a technical specification as defined by the W3C.
@alicebartlett Be concrete and personal Use “you” and “we” Use
“will”
@alicebartlett Not “The aim is to complete phase one by
June”
@alicebartlett Not “Aiming for completion end of June”
@alicebartlett But “We will complete phase one by the end
of June”
Avoid words like “probably”, “maybe”, “might”, “could be” @alicebartlett Don’t
equivocate
@alicebartlett These words are bad for the reader, who is
looking for clear instructions.
@alicebartlett Avoiding them forces you to think about what you
actually mean.
@alicebartlett “We think the best strategy is X” Not
@alicebartlett “The best strategy is X” But
In the active voice, the subject of the sentence does
the action @alicebartlett Avoid the passive voice
@alicebartlett The active voice forces you to take responsibility for
what you are saying
@alicebartlett We use the passive voice when we’re trying to
distance ourselves from the message
@alicebartlett I’ve made a mistake We’ll email you We’ve decided
A mistake was made You will be emailed A decision has been made
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interactive-guide-to-ambiguous-grammar
@alicebartlett Monzo’s style guide contains a useful hack for telling
if you’ve used the passive voice
@alicebartlett I’ve made a mistake We’ll email you We’ve decided
A mistake was made You will be emailed A decision has been made
@alicebartlett I’ve made a mistake by monkeys We’ll email you
by monkeys We’ve decided by monkeys A mistake was made by monkeys You will be emailed by monkeys A decision has been made by monkeys
@alicebartlett Avoid metaphors and idioms
@alicebartlett “You can’t have your cake and eat it too”
@alicebartlett This phrase exists in other languages
@alicebartlett In Italian, the equivalent phrase is
@alicebartlett “Volere la botte piena e la moglie ubriaca”
@alicebartlett “Volere la botte piena e la moglie ubriaca” “Want
a full wine barrel and a drunk wife”
Avoid “simply”, “just” @alicebartlett
Simply rotate the key @alicebartlett
“Simply” adds no value to this sentence. If you don’t
know how to rotate the key, it makes you feel bad. If you do, then you don’t need to know it’s simple @alicebartlett
Simply rotate the key @alicebartlett
@alicebartlett Avoid jargon and acronyms
@alicebartlett Jargon and acronyms create an in- group who know
what they mean, and an out-group who do not
@alicebartlett Jargon is lazy
Hemingway (named after Earnest Hemingway) is an app that shows
when your writing isn’t clear @alicebartlett Use Hemingway
@alicebartlett
None
1. Why writing is important for developers 2. Some tips
for writing well 3. A exercise!