Phil DavisThis is important. "The writers you let go were the supply chain for the intelligence you're now betting on."
"…documentation […] is not a byproduct of development: it's the glue that ties the product together."
Adventures in technical writing: I just caught this typo in a draft:
"Shite+Win+S (Windows)"
Freudian slip?
We're using AI to integrate w/ 3rd-party systems. Our devs must feed the AI complete API reference & thorough, well formatted business docs for any chance of success.
AI requires excellent documentation & devs can do it when the user is a machine. Ironic. #techWriterLife #writeTheDocs
Working with one of my favorite developers to build an API to automate publishing our release comms to multiple channels. Is this what doc tools development feels like? Because it feels damned good. #technicalWriting #techWriterLife #writeTheDocs
Fun with LLMs: the feature is called "Manual Pricer". The LLM decides that "Manual Pricier" is better and uses that throughout.
We added a "Release Notes" field to Jira as part of a project to automate release comms. Devs & QA folks are using it a lot. This unpromoted field is seeing better adoption than anything else we've rolled out ever. Now to rename to "User Release Notes" to scare folks away & maybe add "Engineering Release Notes" to keep the momentum up.
I spent 3 hours "fixing" a feature that hadn't been documented sufficiently… in my own scripts. It is very well documented now.
I experimented with Android emulators last week to doc a mobile app. After a short vacation I returned to find that my work deactivated Linux on Windows. Looks like I just needed to re-enable WSL 2 and Hyper-V, but damn that was a painful few minutes. Like leaning back into your comfy dev-environment chair & falling into space because something removed the back.
"[Techimabob-thingy] is powered by AI, so mistakes are possible. Review output carefully before use." Right. In decades of tech writing my experience proves folks are super careful & thorough when reviewing anything, esp. their "own" work.
Happy Friday! Sometimes Past Phil is a legend. All too often, Past Phil is a bastard.