API documentation

Subject: API documentation
From: Jennifer Rippel <jlrippel -at- HOTMAIL -dot- COM>
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 16:00:51 PDT

I am a rather new technical writer, and my first project is to document
the API for a library of C++ functions.

So far my information-gathering process has consisted of programmers
verbally explaining the various classes and functions to me. I then have
to write the documentation from scratch.

Although I have a good technical background and a good background in the
subject matter, the concepts are still new to me. Therefore it takes a
long time (reading about the subject, looking through the code, then
writing, revising) just to produce a few pages of documentation. I've
worried that this process has been going too slowly, but on the other
hand I'm not sure how I could go any faster.

Today, a manager also expressed concern that this project was going too
slowly.

So, my questions are:

* How do you gather information for a project such as this? Is it normal
to have to write this from scratch, or is it reasonable to request
written information from the programmers that I can then rewrite,
format, etc., and which would take a shorter period of time?

* Is my manager expecting too much too soon? Or am I expecting too
little--that is, should I be accomplishing more, in a shorter time
frame?

Thanks,
JR

jlrippel -at- hotmail -dot- com

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