git manpage generator: A parody, something generating plausible but fictional documentation for git
https://git-man-page-generator.lokaltog.net/#bWFzc2FnZSQkYmFyZSByZXBvc2l0b3J5
#documentation #funny #dvcs #unix #git #vcs #+
Struggling with technical writing? 
This video on the Editor's Toolkit shows you the essential software and resources to improve clarity, speed up your workflow, and collaborate better.
I cover:
Grammar & style checkers Style guides & terminology management Collaboration platforms Version control
Watch here to make your technical documents shine!
https://youtu.be/KJ8DWjVLa9I
Oh hey, that looks *useful*!
https://mastodon.social/@steipete/114982119853883518
DevExpress Documentations is now accessible as an MCP server
https://www.jocheojeda.com/2025/08/05/devexpress-documentations-is-now-accessible-as-an-mcp-server/
We recently introduced WASM runnable-examples in the manual.
An example: https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.operators.assignment.php
We only enabled it for sections where we know the examples work, as they were not always written with runability in mind.
We need to evaluate each section on https://github.com/php/doc-en/issues/4799, and verify the examples, whether they need a fix, or need other tweaks to make it work.
For the random extension, this is what I did: https://github.com/php/doc-en/commit/1bcc40f8134305cbebf6c8378ee7e5fc8c569674
Will you help?
The Emacs Org-mode format offers to keep “your life in plain text”. It is a very powerful format with many configuration options.
Pandoc supports a decent subset of Org-mode. Due to the complexity, we maintain an extra page that lists the supported features, how they are translated into pandoc's document model, and explains ways to control and extend the conversion process.
https://pandoc.org/org.html
BookStack v25.07 is now here with a bundle of improvements:
Markdown Plaintext Input Option
New Comment/Description Editor
New WYSIWYG Editor Improvements
Improved Changelog Input
ZIP Import/Export API Endpoints
Parent Tag Classes
Multi-Column Layout Refinements
Better Permission Generation
Nepali Language & Updates
A massive shout out and gratitude to @brandtryan for being a superstar and manually reviewing and comparing the expected outputs of the hundreds of code examples & snippets included in the readmes and documentation of the #ThingUmbrella repo. Over the past weeks he submitted dozens of issues with discrepancies, which I now have 99% updated/fixed (I hope)...
Thank you, thank you! 
FYI. The snippet extraction system is based on https://thi.ng/tangle, which allows you to extract runnable code examples from code blocks in #Markdown files and from docstrings in source files. More info about this feature & process here:
#Development #Anniversaries
MDN turns 20 · Celebrating its renowned web technology documentation https://ilo.im/165mhl
_____
#Mozilla #MDN #Documentation #WebPlatform #Browser #WebDev #Frontend #HTML #CSS #JavaScript
"While haste and speed often get confused, they differ in that the second shows control instead of panic. You can maximize speed while keeping accuracy quite high; beyond a certain point, though, spending more time on accuracy, style, or other aspects that prevent a document from going live always yields diminishing returns.
Nobody reads perfect yet outdated docs, except historians. Even then, docs aren’t perfect, because documentation can’t ever be perfect. This is a key principle I stand by (call it the Ferri Paradox if you want): Any document describing a system is necessarily inaccurate. And yet, this reality doesn’t significantly alter the impact of our work, because we aim for simplicity and usefulness over extreme faithfulness. Given how imperfect products are, docs are a charitable portrait.
Now, how you write docs quickly depends on a number of factors. Some of those factors you can’t control: your overall amount of experience as a writer, your initial expertise with specific technologies, and the way features are developed and released in your organization. But other aspects are yours to act upon. For example, you can decide how to best use the technical resources at your disposal and how to approach writing the docs and asking for feedback."
Basic Questions That Every (Technical) Writer Should Try To Answer - AKA Technical Writing 101:
I assure you that If you can answer all of these questions, your readers won't mistake you for a chatbot :)
1. What is the purpose of the document that I'm writing?
2. Why am I writing this document?
3. Who is the target audience of this document?
4. Is this document part of a series of documents?
5. If so, have I established a nexus to the other documents in the series?
6. Are there any predefined formal requirements that the document must meet?
7. Does the document meet those requirements?
8. Does the document include an introduction?
9. Does the introduction clearly explain the purpose of the document to the target audience?
10. Does the introduction present the topics that will be explored in the body of the document in a straightforward way?
11. Does the document include a conclusion?
12. Does the conclusion provide a good summary of the previously explored topics?
13. Does the conclusion tell readers what they should have learned by following the document?
14. Does the body of the document include use case scenarios based on user personas that explain the potential advantages of adopting the explored tools or methods?
15. Does the body of the document depict real-life examples of how readers can immediately start using the tools or methods explained in the document?
[OT] PHPDocumentor vs Doxygen
#documentation #développement #PHP
https://open-time.net/post/2025/07/20/PHPDocumentor-vs-Doxygen
‘He told us to just tell the truth’ – behind a revealing Billy Joel documentary
In HBO’s five-hour portrait, the chart-dominating singer-songwriter gives unusual insight into his career with support from his A-list friends and collaborators
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jul/17/billy-joel-documentary-hbo
And yes, whoever uses #discord for #documentation and #versioning instead of a goddam #git [doesn't have to be @github / #GitHub or @gitlab / #GitLab or @Codeberg / #Codeberg or even @gitea / #Gitea - just use any git and write down your documentation in a useable format like #Markdown or goddamn ASCII plain text FFS] should be banned for life from #coding, working in #IT or contribute to #FLOSS.
Divine Documentation
Dad was about my age when he said that reading the manual was better than hypothesis driven button pressing. For teenage me, that took too long. Sure, I may have crashed a computer or two but following my gut got me there. Of course my gut isn’t that smart. In the decades preceding, devices had converged on a common pattern language of buttons. Once learned, the standard grammar of action would reliably deliver me to my destination.
Image of a nebula taken by the Hubble Telescope.In programming I was similarly aided by the shared patterns across MATLAB, Python, R, Java, Julia, and even HTML. In the end however, dad was right. Reading documentation is the way. Besides showing correct usage, manuals create a new understanding of my problems. I am able to play with tech thanks to the people that took the effort and the care to create good documentation. This is not limited to code and AI. During the startup years, great handbooks clarified accounting, fundraising, and regulations, areas foreign to me.
I love good documentation and I write documentation. Writing good documentation is hard. It is an exercise in deep empathy with my user. Reaching into the future to give them all they need is part of creating good technology. Often the future user is me and I like it when past me is nice to now me. If an expert Socratic interlocutor is like weight training, documentation is a kindly spirit ancestor parting the mist.
Maybe it’s something about being this age but now I try to impart good documentation practices to my teams. I also do not discourage pressing buttons to see what happens. Inefficient, but discovery is a fun way to spike interest.
Meanwhile, I’m reading a more basic kind of documentation. Writing English. Having resolved to write more, I’m discovering that words are buttons. Poking them gets me to where I want, but not always. Despite writerly ambitions, the basics are lacking. This became apparent recently when I picked up the book Artful Sentences by Virginia Tufte*. It’s two hundred and seventy pages of wonderful sentences dissected to show their mechanics. I was lost by page 5. The book is, temporarily, in my anti-library.
So, I’m going to the basics, Strunk and White, and William Zinsser. I’m hoping that Writing to Learn (finished) and On Writing Well (in progress) provide sufficient context about reasons to write to make the most of S&W, for the how, then somewhere down the road, savor Tufte.
* Those dastardly Tuftes are always making me learn some kind of grammar.
https://www.howtogeek.com/why-i-actually-like-reading-linux-documentation-over-other-systems/
Documentation written by the people who made the software, not some PR/Marketing schmuck, that's honest about it's flaws instead of insisting "There are no bugs in Ba-Sing-Se" Not having to worry about Documentation disappearing, or needing to buy a new copy of the book every couple of years. What's not to love?
Astro Docs is redefining Must-See TV... well, for docs 
Tomorrow on Talking and Doc'ing:
- Fixing an Astro Docs SEO issue using Starlight's new `routeData`.
- Writing docs for a feature that doesn't exist (and that we don't yet even know how we're going to implement) to drive its development!
Subscribe to the @astro YouTube channel and be notified when we go live (Thurs 9ET / 14:00 CET)
@thomasfuchs
Honestly I learnt every #tech skills of mine because of the #passion. Sooner or later we get these #short #term and #long term #purpose.
But if someone's going for #AI #coding for the sake of #Job / #Career might not #sustain if things get hard. That's why I #suggest people to #learn #organically developing their mind #map through #logics.
I use AI for understanding the #documentation and #debugging purposes not for a entire #mental #model.
I do it for #education not #production.
