A recurring question from people entering the tech writing profession is “Should I learn to code?”. This query has become hugely popular in the docs-as-code age, where writers and developers live in the same DevOps trenches, eating the same CI/CD rations and publishing docs using broken tools that often lack maintainers. My answer is “These are not the learnings you’re looking for.”| passo.uno
In May 2023 over 90,000 developers responded to our annual survey about how they learn and level up, which tools they're using, and which ones they want.| Stack Overflow
While thinking about unconventional technical communication, like comic books, children stories, and games, a thought occurred to me that they’re all attempts at hitting the core of what a product is and does, that is, its truth. I developed this picture of a series of concentric levels of comprehension and something resembling the circles of Dante’s Inferno came out of it. Don’t run away yet: Embrace hope all ye who enter here.| passo.uno
From time to time, people ask me about technical writing and the type of work I do. As not much is known about technical writing outside of the English-speaking world, I came up with a short answer. I hope you’ll find it useful.| passo.uno
A colleague asked me the other day what’s my favourite way of extracting information from subject-matter experts (SMEs). This is a big topic in technical writing, as most of our time at work is spent chasing engineers and project managers to get bits of information. My answer was “Be like Lieutenant Columbo”.| passo.uno
Despite the massive growth of docs-as-code as a documentation ethos, I continue to be surprised, year after year, by the lack of robust docs-as-code tools. Most days it feels as if docs-as-code was a giant standing on feet of clay, on the fragile toolchains that we use to create our documentation in all kinds of software companies, from startups to unicorns.| passo.uno