RE: Writing a Developer's Guide

[Shea Michael EXT <Michael -dot- Shea -dot- extern -at- icn -dot- siemens -dot- de>]

This is a good question, but the fundamental question you have to ask is what are your readers supposed to do with the book? You can ask yourself:

1. Who is going to reed the book
2. What are they going to accomplish with it

Put the important stuff first.

Michael Shea
XpressLink Documentation
c/o ICN AS BA ST2
+49 89 722-52589
michael -dot- shea -dot- extern -at- icn -dot- siemens -dot- de

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Michael Shea
ROSEMANN & LAURIDSEN GMBH
Am Schlossberg 14, D-82547 Eurasburg, Germany

Phone: +49 8179 9307-19, Fax: +49 8179 9307-12
E-Mail: shea -at- r-l -dot- de, Web: www.r-l.de
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From: Dick Margulis 
Subject: Re: Writing a Developer's Guide



Sarah,

I suggest you start with information that will help users localize their concern of the moment. In other words, begin with an overview of the system architecture (diagrams help), the general flow of transactions around the system, and a brief description of what each chunk of the system is and does. Key this overview to chapter numbers. Then, in each chapter, address one of the chunks you've identified--hardware, software, dataflow, interaction with other chunks.

That's how I've approached such systems in the past, and it has always been well received.

Dick

 "Payne, Sarah" <sarah -dot- payne -at- eircom -dot- net> wrote:

>I have been tasked with writing a developer's guide for one of our internal
>systems.  The system is large and complex and I'm a bit stumped as to how I
>should organise the information.
>
>I know that I need to include detailed code descriptions, architectural
>information, how data flows around the system and other hardware and
>software information.  The guide is aimed at our developers and technical
>staff.
>
>How would you go about organising the information so that it is easy to find
>stuff?


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