Markup languages and warp-speed documentation

Editor's Notes

• #2: Hi, I’m Lois Patterson. I’ve worked at many software companies in different roles. My focus for the past few years has been developer documentation. Much of this presentation was written while I was at my previous role as a Technical Communications Manager at a company where we did a large conversion project for our documentation.
• #3: Let’s look at the shift in culture. What are markup languages and dev ops? Why use one language over another?
• #4: A release every year or two was common. The docs would go to the printers. We would get proofs. It would take weeks! Delays between development and documentation were expected. Long release cycles. Printing, corrections – it was a different world.
• #5: Who does this? Google, Atlassian, many companies who need to go live with new content all the time.How can you keep documentation in sync if you go through a print house review cycle? Consider the code review process for software development.
• #6: Who has a technical documentation team with a defined set of writers using proprietary tools?(Gatekeeping model, may be necessary in certain environments) Who has a technical documentation team with writers, but also outside contributors? (Typical software world) Who has no official tech docs team, but a host of contributors? (E.g., last I heard, Twitter has 4 technical writers. But look where Twitter is.)
• #7: Agile means something different to every person and every company, but we generally agree that it’s a way to develop working software continuously and incrementally, rather than waiting for a big bang product.Do not get hung up on the philosophy differences. The idea is the teams are continuously checking in against each other, and delivering improvements almost all the time.
• #8: We all strive to be.But still not completely suitable for all cases. Modeling requirements and planning are still important (and can be part of Agile).
• #9: Book recommendation I recently read this book, and he covers many of the same concepts I discuss in this talk. I recommend reading it if you can. If you get Kindle Unlimited, then it’s free (a plug).
• #10: For many products, the documentation is integrated into the product. It’s not possible to pull them apart. Not all documentation is in the product, but enough of it is that you have to keep up to date.
• #11: Dev ops means you will likely hear about Ansible, Puppet, Chef, Docker. Agile development continues through to the IT team. Fully integrated dev ops has development, QA, documentation, IT deployment, and customer support all prepared and all aligned with the current product version at any given moment.
• #12: How can you do this type of rapid, continuous development, integration, and deployment if you do not simplify processes? Judicious use of markup languages, and treating docs as code, allows you to vastly speed up your process.
• #13: You have used markup languages, I’m sure. I’m focusing on the simple ones for this presentation – perhaps I should have said – Why use simple markup languages for documentation?
• #14: I don’t want to make a hard and fast division. easyDITA, FluidTopics, and other vendors are working on ways to make DITA work in a high-speed environment. But I’m discussing what has worked for us, and what I know has worked for many others working particularly in the field of developer documentation. XML markup, like DITA and DocBook vs. simpler markup, like reStructuredText, Markdown, and AsciiDoc Different domains – different requirements Situation is evolving! Balance of overhead versus structure
• #15: By quickly, I mean within an hour. Just like anyone can write in a wiki. Some writers worry they are less valuable if everyone is documenting. No – you do necessarily take an editorial role, but there are always documents to write, particularly for complex software. You can go well beyond the basics.
• #16: The right use of markup languages allows anyone to become a contributor with close to zero rampup, and no concern about licenses or weeks of training.
• #17: If you use markup languages, you need a way to process the raw documents into a finished product. So here’s the general process.
• #18: My portfolio page at GitHub Markdown is highly versatile, widely used Different flavors hinder compatibility Customizations are common
• #19: We’ve taken a look at Markdown. Now we’ll look at reStructuredText.
• #21: Github is an example of what collaborative culture can look like. GitHub phenomenon has a general theme: widespread contributors We’re in this together Technical writers, to produce constantly updated docs, require full contributions from other team members Dev/Doc Ops requires an engaged, fully coordinated team Every developer knows markup languages; contribution is straightforward ->I just saw this quote on Twitter.
• #22: I just saw this quote on Twitter. Developers know they need good documentation to use new APIs, new languages, and so forth. Having excellent technical contributors in no way diminishes technical writers.
• #23: Let’s take this idea of contribution more generally. Not only in the company you work for, but for the tools you know and love. You can see this collaborative culture with everyone who has contributed to Github or other open communities. Many excellent open-source software projects with great developers need technical documentation Use of markup languages, a knowledge of Git, and a willingness to follow the process required Build your portfolio Growing trend for hiring managers to look at GitHub commits
• #24: We all strive to be.But still not completely suitable for all cases. Modeling requirements and planning are still important (and can be part of Agile).
• #25: Let’s look a some technical details of using markup languages.
• #26: Some possible negatives. I’m discussing positives throughout, so I want to keep these in mind.
• #27: Let’s take some look at some examples.
• #28: I am very partial to reStructuredText. I love Python, which is where reST originated (not to be confused with REST APIs). So many excellent projects are using rest, and you can see many of these projects at the Read The Docs site. We were very fortunate to have the resources of an experienced Python developer, who is very familiar with the build system, how content is pulled in from various places, and who was just generally a superstar developer.
• #29: You can get an idea of how flexible rest is. The ReadTheDocs page is editable at Github, and you can see the source. You can also see it rendered at Github, and you can also see it rendered at ReadTheDocs. If they wanted to make a PDF, or some other format, they could.
• #42: Remember reStructuredText designed to work with Python functions originally Look at RackSpace implementations Stripe’s API docs General principle: Write a script that pulls content out of code and into a markup file, which is then processed into documentation DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) I have done so much copy and paste in my life, but you are setting yourself up for error. We need to automate!
• #43: Automation is what makes Agile work, what makes dev ops work, and what will make markup languages work for you. If ever you find yourself copying and pasting, see if there’s a way you can automate that. Having continuously updated docs relies on automation. What are some examples of automation that you use?
• #44: Templates, variables, planning, thinking – markup languages are a tool, but technical documentation still requires planning and organizing.
• #45: Why we left custom XML behind.