Reminds me of one of my favourite Xkcd.
Although I guess we are more in this one, really.I’m really impressed by people who can write stuff that makes kinda sense, while being complete gibberish. Very funny and y’all need to remember where you are.
as of right now the second xkcd you linked is in an identical format to the newest xkcd. Not relevant to the post, just think it’s cool
You sure that’s a tutorial and not the “about” page of half of github, where you have no fucking clue what the project is about?
Boop!
My God y’all can’t just let a joke be a joke if there’s an option for you to be correct instead, LMAO
Edit: I just scrolled through all the comments and saw that the large majority of the replies here are very long, multi-paragraph comments. Y’all ok? Did this post touch a nerve with some of you? LMFAO
Actually!
I went to the comments expecting some more jokes but found multiple dissertations instead wtf.
Yooo, seriousely whats going on?? Hahaha
I think the blogger is more technical than they let on:
- understands how to write footnotes
- structures lists correctly
- runs their own blog with custom domain name.
I’ve known programmers struggle with markdown.
You can be pretty technical/capable and still write that article (especially if you have technical expertise outside programming). I have never felt so seen.
I worked my way up from arduino -> RasPi -> Debian -> Self hosting quite a few things. I’m very much a hobbyist/novice, but I’m used to learning. It is so hard to read some documentation and understand what something even does sometimes. This goes double for incredibly useful tools for monitoring/implementing other tools. Like I swear I read the kubernetes descriptions 30x before I realized what in the hell it actually does, and now I’m probably about to break my entire home network with it because I think it’s cool as hell.
Also, to your comment specifically: I can get sensors on PCBs I personally made collecting data, throwing it through my own MQTT broker, hosting a dashboard etc, all at a remote site across state lines. I have no idea wtf markdown is. I use yaml for HA stuff with the ESPs, but I don’t know why markdown is a thing and it’s not just python.
And I am 1000% sure there is a very good reason for 98% of this. But yes I found this article hilarious. In my personal circle of hell all nouns end in “-ly”.
Well that’s because markdown is for documentation, and we all know programmers don’t know how to write documentation.
🥲
understands how to write footnotes
x
The footnotes link to the list instead of the actual footnotes. I was quite confused.
Looks like a case of broken web browser or doesn’t understand footnotes. 🤔
If you don’t understand the “problem” part in the “what problem does this tool fix?” Then you probably don’t need that tool. You should probably try the program they mentioned that didn’t fix their specific problem. Since that program probably has way more users and a more entry-level documentation.
When it comes to documentation, at least for myself when I’m learning new things, I like to look at it like a recipe book.
The book shouldn’t contain just the ingredients and what the final product looks like. It needs to be more in depth than that. It needs to contain the ingredients that go into it, how much of those ingredients, the time to cook, what consistency to look for, prep time, etc.
There are plenty of people out there who have never cooked before, and a recipe book/instructions on how to cook a favorite dish is the perfect way to share your love of the craft and the dish that you made. Then, with your recipe as a guideline, people could change it to suit their tastes, and so on and so on.
That’s just how I look at it. I wish I could interpret developer instructions and write up a more user friendly documentation for them. I would love to be able to give back to the community in some more meaningful way than just barely knowing what the developer is providing and using it and making a mess of it my first few tries until I learn from my mistakes.
I structure my tutorial docs (I write a lot of them for work) like the O’Reilly cookbook series for this reason.
The problem you’re trying to solve is at the top. Next comes a list of prerequisites for the instructions. Then clear, step-by-step instructions with no more than one command or action for each one, highlighting anything that’s different depending on environment.
Then at the bottom I’ll sometimes add a discussion of why each command does what it does, and finally a list of resources for whatever programs or systems the instructions are about.
Thank you for that. I’m sure the people who read it and got a grasp of what they are trying to accomplish greatly appreciate your going out of the way like that. :-]
Usually it’s to help a customer create a proof of concept going so we can make a sale so it’s not entirely a selfless act.
Plus it keeps me from sitting on hours-long calls trying to walk them through ambiguous instructions.
These days I pretty much just give the code to the LLM and it spits out documentation
Is it prefect? No. But it takes me literally 10 minutes and it’s 90% there
In being slightly facetious here, I do spend some time on it to make it appropriate. But it sure does a good job imo
This is one of those things where I’m actually okay with AI use. I understand a lot of the FOSS community devs don’t have a lot of time for such matters, so if this gets it at the very least 90% there, I would consider it a win! (human review being a big bonus, of course!) :-]
The issue here is that the author of that post, and potentially the fictional author of the thing being lampooned, are not drawing a distinction between a tutorial (or an explanation) and a how-to.
Either you want to get a task done, or you want to spend a lot longer learning how to work that out for yourself.
(Many tutorials will include small set of how-to-like instructions because emulating the actions of a master will improve one’s vocabulary of what can be done as well as how it is achieved.)
The more advanced the level of knowledge on something the more foundation knowledge somebody has to have to even begin to understand things at that level.
It would be pretty insane to in a tutorial for something at a higher level of expertise, include all the foundational knowledge to get to that level of expertise so that an absolute beginner can understand what’s going on.
Imagine if you were trying to explain something Mathematical that required using Integrals and you started by “There this symbol, ‘1’ which represents a single item, and if you bring another single item, this is calling addition - for which we use the symbol ‘+’ and the count of entities when you have one single entity and ‘added’ another single entity is represented by the symbol ‘2’. There is also the concept of equality, which means two matematical things represent the same and for which the symbol we use is ‘=’ - writting this with Mathematical symbols, ‘1 + 1 = 2’” and built the explanation up from there all the way to Integrals before you could even start to explain what you wanted to explain in the first place.
That said, people can put it in “recipe” format - a set of steps to be blindly followed without understanding - but even there you have some minimal foundational knowlegde required - consider a cooking recipe: have you ever seen any that explains how does one weight ingredients or what is “boiling” or “baking”?
So even IT “recipes” especially designed so that those with a much lower level of expertise than the one required to actually understand what’s going on have some foundational knowledge required to actually execute the steps of the recipe.
Last but not least I get the impression that most people who go to the trouble of writting about how to do something prefere to do explanations rather than recipes, because there’s some enjoyment in teaching about something to others, which you get when you explain it but seldom from merely providing a list of steps for others to blindly follow without understanding.
So, if one wants to do something way above the level of expertise one has, look for “recipe” style things rather than explanations - the foundational expertise required to execute recipes is way lower than the one required to undertand explanations - and expect that there are fewer recipes out there than explanations. Further, if you don’t understand what’s in a recipe then your expertise is below even the base level of that recipe (for example, if somebody writes “enter so and so in the command prompt” and you have no fucking clue what a “command prompt” is, you don’t meet the base requirements to even blindly follow the recipe), so either seek recipes with an even lower base level or try and learn those base elements.
Further, don’t even try and understand the recipe if your expertise level is well below what you’re trying to achieve: sorry but you’re not going to get IT’s “Integrals” stuff if your expertise is at the level of understanding “multiplication”.
I Prefer a playbook to a recipe card. The playbook should spell out the goal and the 'why’s of the steps. Because if the process throws an error due to upgraded code etc, then you can be stuck at step one with no path forward. With some playbook annotation you at least know expected out come and why you are running a command etc.
When I have gone to docker hub I always view multiple images and see what their writeup is like. Some just assume you 100% know all dockers subtleties, some have a one liner, but there will be a helpfull soul who spells out what steps to do, and what the best options to set etc. Like a mini tutorial.
I find the mini tutorial to be widely beneficial, because it removes the blackbox nature, and gives new onboarding users a chance to grasp the concepts docker works with.
It’s like the difference between going to a mechanic that has you sit by the coffee machine in the office while they change your brakes and they come back and say “I swapped the new pads in”, vs them pulling up a chair in the shop and explaining the process “here I’m wirebrushing the back of the wheel and the hub, to make sure when it goes back on there is no corrosion debris stopping a parallel fit…now I’m applying high temp grease so that the hub and wheel don’t sieze together from corrosion and make next removal easy”
The info is probably useless to a seasoned mechanic that had a broken hand so had somebody else do their brake work, but highly useful to the next gen of person that can absorb it and know whats and whys.
It’s like the difference between going to a mechanic that has you sit by the coffee machine in the office …
Good example. I just wanted to add that the place I go to for tyres, if there’s some kind of issue (like with balance or alignment), sometimes they even take me into the workshop (where customers are usually not allowed) to show me what the issue is.
Yeah, that’s much better.
Personally I detest not understanding what’s going on when following a guide to do something, so I really dislike recipe style.
That said, I mentioned recipes because recipes meant to be blindly followed are the style of guide which has the lowest possible “required expertise level” of all.
I supposed a playbook properly done (i.e. a dumbed down set by step “do this” guide but with side annotations which are clearly optional reading, explaining what’s going on for those who have the higher expertise levels needed to understand them) can have as low a “required expertise level” as just a plain recipe whilst being a much nicer option because people who know a bit more can get more from it that they could from just a dumbed down recipe.
That said, it has to be structured so that it’s really clear that those “explanation bits” are optional reading for the curious which have the knowhow to understand them, otherwise it risks scaring less skilled people who would actually be able to successfully do the taks by blindly following the step-by-step recipe part of it.
That said, it has to be structured so that it’s really clear that those “explanation bits” are optional reading for the curious which have the knowhow to understand them
Yep, totally. This past year I spent a lot of time setting up an LMS with content.
I included sections that were tips, good to know, for awareness, etc.Maybe only 1 out of every 20 users might expand the section, but if they do then there is a clear explanation of why this particular thing functions this way and how to make it work in alternate usecases. Images and explanation, before and after, etc.
“That said, people can put it in “recipe” format - a set of steps to be blindly followed without understanding - but even there you have some minimal foundational knowlegde required”
Something that’s quite interesting is that apparently one of the core components of how Latin and Greek used to be taught in fancy public schools (especially in like, Isaac Newton’s era) was that students would be made to copy out sections from classical literature (such as the Odyssey). Obviously this would be happening alongside lessons involving basic grammar, but I’ve seen some scholars suggest that this kind of blind repetition was a key component to the language learning, and that it may even be useful for learning languages in a modern context.
It would be pretty insane to in a tutorial for something at a higher level of expertise, include all the foundational knowledge to get to that level of expertise
You don’t need to include it all. You just need to mention it as pre-requisite knowledge, and link to resources about it for those who don’t have that knowledge. See Creating MAUI UI’s in C#
I get the impression that most people who go to the trouble of writting about how to do something prefere to do explanations rather than recipes
Good documentation includes both. i.e. step-by-step guide, with explanations. See above.
so either seek recipes with an even lower base level
All documentation should cater to all levels. See above.
I think your tutorial depends too much on your editor UI. It reminds me of those tutorials (often written by Microsoft) where the IDE has changed enough to break the tutorial. This made the tutorial completely useless, because none of them would explain what I actually needed: the magic thing their IDE did in terms of essentials (text files, basic commands), so I could reproduce the effect.
This is different in the unix world, which favors tool-agnostic approaches in terms of text files & basic commands. Even as tooling & technology changes, I can usually look up the meaning of the text & those commands to update them.
That’s the most important I think: not the answer itself, but where the answer comes from, so I can go back there when I need to.
I think your tutorial depends too much on your editor UI
You mean the UI which is specified in the pre-requisites, that UI? 😂 It’s not a bug, it’s a feature - no bloat from going through everything twice (once for VS, once for VS Code). That’s why it’s in the pre-requisites.
It reminds me of those tutorials (often written by Microsoft) where the IDE has changed enough to break the tutorial.
You know I needed to write this because Microsoft hasn’t written a tutorial for this topic, at all, right? That does remind me though, MAUI have changed the parameters for Grids - I better check that part of my tutorial is still valid.
For “all documentation” to “cater to all levels” it would have to explain to people “how do you use a keyboard” and everything from there upwards, because there are people at that level hence it’s part of “all levels”.
I mean the your own example of good documentation starts with an intro of “goals” saying:
“Visual Studio (VS) does not (currently) provide a blank .NET Multi-platform Application User Interface (MAUI) template which is in C# only. In this post we shall cover how to modify your new MAUI solution to get rid of the XAML, as well as cover how to do in C# code the things which are currently done in XAML (such as binding). We shall also briefly touch on some of the advantages of doing this.”
For 99% of people almost all that is about as understandable as Greek (expect for Greek people, for whom it’s about as understandable as Chinese).
I mean, how many people out there in the whole World (non-IT people as illustrated in the actual article linked by the OP) do you think know what the hell is “Visual Studio”, “.Net”, “Multi-platform Application User Interface”, “template”, “C#”, “XAML”, “binding” (in this context).
I mean, if IT knowledge was a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 the greatest, you’re basically thinking it’s “catering to all levels” when an explanation for something that is level 8 knowledge (advanced programming) has a baseline required level of 7 (programming). I mean, throw this at somebody that “knows how to use Excel” which is maybe level 4 and they’ll be totally lost, much less somebody who only knows how to check their e-mail using a browser without even properly understanding the concept of "browser (like my father) which is maybe level 2 (he can actually use a mouse and keyboard, otherwise I would’ve said level 1).
I think you’re so way beyond the average person in your expertise in this domain that you don’t even begin to suspect just how little of our domain the average person knows compared to an mere programmer.
it would have to explain to people “how do you use a keyboard”
No it wouldn’t. You just link to resources about pre-requisite knowledge.
and everything from there upwards
Nope. Exact same thing applies to all pre-requisite knowledge.
For 99% of people almost all that is about as understandable as Greek
Now scroll down to the pre-requisite knowledge which has links to things explaining ALL of that.
how many people out there in the whole World (non-IT people as illustrated in the actual article linked by the OP) do you think know what the hell is “Visual Studio”, “.Net”, “Multi-platform Application User Interface”, “template”, “C#”, “XAML”, “binding” (in this context)
Exact same number as there is people capable of clicking on the provided links about them in the pre-requisite knowledge section.
which is maybe level 4 and they’ll be totally lost,
…until they read the links in the pre-requisite knowledge, and then they will understand all of it.
I think you’re so way beyond the average person in your expertise in this domain
says person who didn’t even scroll past the introductory paragraph! 😂 You think people try to learn things by reading only the introductory paragraph?? 😂
you don’t even begin to suspect just how little of our domain the average person knows compared to an mere programmer
And yet, weirdly, if you keep reading you’ll find it caters to people who know nothing about it 😂
Cool but nobody’s about to link to prerequisite information like typing on a keyboard. Same for math, a book focusing on integration isn’t going to say “read this book for the basics of addition btw”.
And why should one even cater to that? If a person is interested enough they can just… look up the things they don’t understand, that’s not exactly hard
Cool but nobody’s about to link to prerequisite information like typing on a keyboard.
they say to someone who does indeed link to all pre-requisite knowledge. 😂 You know some Tech people do indeed recommend doing a touch-typing course, right?
Same for math, a book focusing on integration isn’t going to say “read this book for the basics of addition btw”
I’m a Maths teacher. You’ll find that Maths textbooks do indeed run through any pre-requisites for the topic. e.g. “We discussed back in Chapter 2…”.
And why should one even cater to that?
Because it’s useless to a large chunk of your audience if you don’t.
If a person is interested enough they can just… look up the things they don’t understand,
No they just can’t, not when no information at all has been given on what this is so that you have something to search for. See Microsoft doco where they use TLA’s, don’t tell you what the TLA is short for, don’t link to any information about the TLA, and searching for “TLA” (since they’ve not told you what TLA is short for) fails to bring up any information about this thing they are talking about. Now the tutorial is completely useless to you because you have no idea what they’re talking about and can’t find anything about what they’re talking about. “Draw the rest of the owl”
that’s not exactly hard
It’s very hard when you have no keywords at all to work with.
No, you’re not supposed to follow years of computer science courses in a university. A good tutotial will provide all prerequisite knowledge for you. Including high school.
How about that worst of both worlds, the tutorial where the author starts out writing as if their audience only barely knows what a computer is, gets fed up partway through, and vomits out the rest in a more obtuse and less complete form than they would’ve otherwise?
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Turn on your computer. Make sure you turn on the “PC” (the big box part) as well as the “monitor” (TV-like part).
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Once your computer is ready and you can see the desktop, open your web browser. This might be called “Chrome”, “Safari”, “Edge”, or something else. It’s the same program you open to use “the Google”.
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In the little bar near the top of the window where you can write things, type “https://www.someboguswebsite.corn/download/getbogus.html” and press the Enter key.
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Download the software and unarchive it to a new directory in your borklaving software with the appropriate naming convention.
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Edit the init file to match your frooping setup.
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If you’re using Fnerp then you might need to switch off autoglomping. Other suites need other settings.
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Use the thing. You know, the thing that makes the stuff work right. Whatever.
Congratulations! You’re ready to go!
Sounds like typical Microsoft documentation to me. Explains in great detail what .NET is, where you can download it from, then jumps straight to the advanced topic they’re covering without any of the intermediate knowledge covered or even linked to (but perhaps referred to only vaguely in passing as an acronym, again with no link, this time no link to what “TLA” is actually short for, so you’re searching for it is fruitless as well).
I think TLA means “Three Letter Acronym” in some circles. So like, DBA would be a TLA meaning “database administrator” for example. Didn’t read the article to get the context though, so not sure if it fits
Yes, TLA is a three letter acronym. A four letter acronym, on the other hand, is an ETLA, or “Enhanced Three Letter Acronym”. For advanced cases, you can get an EETLA (or XETLA) for Expanded/Extended Enhanced Three Letter Acronym.
Just so you know.
I think TLA means “Three Letter Acronym” in some circles
Yes, that was why I used it. Microsoft doco is full of unexplained TLA’s - you have to already know what it means and how to use the thing. You knew what TLA meant. Now read the Miscrosoft doco where you don’t know what any of the MS TLA’s mean, and they don’t tell you.
Too real.
-
Controversial, but: Skill issue.
I do a lot of FOSS work. I dont write docs for everyone most of the timr. I write docs for those already educated on most of the items. This still applies, and is accessible to anyone:
If you don’t know the word, look it up in the dictionary.
I don’t want to downplay frustrations, I know those are real, but most people writing these things aren’t paid.
Note: If a Dev complains their idea isn’t adopted and the docs suck, that’s another story.
Edit: And the article seems to be by a career writer, so it makes sense from their perspective, but some more expansive thinking on their part about how a developer isn’t staffed to do their job, too, would be helpful.
On the flipside I’ve encountered docs that expect the reader to already understand the functionality in order to be able to use the docs. They seem to exist solely as a reminder to those who already know.
There’s a reason I don’t bother running my own mailservers anymore!
deleted by creator
Oh man, this I do hate. If you have terminology in your app, that is not a standard, please, please define it.
Yeah, I use a software that had amazing documentation when they had a publishing company division. When the publisher was gone the documentation is at most a glorified of glossary.
Help on Feature XYZ: Feature XYZ allows you to use FeatureXYZ
I found this website/article by accident on neocities, it’s about a tutorial Git. Though it’s a bit bare-bones I respect the effort.
Would be nice to see what all of you think. Considering this is a thread on tutorials. I hope this kid succeeds in life.
They seem to exist solely as a reminder to those who already know
Perfect description of the entire Microsoft .NET documentation, signed, .NET beginner who not only didn’t have a .NET background, but not even a Microsoft programming background (which is also heavily assumed throughout - way to make newbies feel completely unwelcome in your ecosystem!).
Docs aren’t for everybody sometimes stuff is just complex and requires prior understanding. I guess that’s where more people can help FOSS projects, by writing more accessible docs and pre packaging stuff so it can be used by less technical people or someone who’s just starting out.
Agreed, maybe this writer could step in and volunteer their time instead of writing satire complaining about it.
How many dictionary lookups deep are people reasonably expected to go? Depending on the reader, there’s just some level of complexity that isn’t accessible any more. Add to that the diversity of mental models and approaches people take and a semantic structure intuitive to you just won’t work for someone else, no matter what words you use. Don’t get me wrong, you can’t cater to everyone and I’m not sure you should if you could.
I understand that your target audience are typically people already familiar with or at least invested in the subject matter, in which case leaning on a presumed funamental understanding and a willingness to fill gaps is sensible. You don’t want to bloat your docs by repeating things your most relevant readers already know.
In doing so, you “sacrifice” the accessibility for less versed people. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t have to choose and everyone would get an explanation suitable to their own level of understanding and background. Alas, our world imposes limits on our knowledge, abilities, time and energy. Readers and writers alike should be aware of those limits, both in themselves and in each other.
I feel like “Skill issue” understates the complexity of the combinatorics the diversity of human minds produces. It’s a human issue that might never be perfectly solvable. Your solution is good and appropriate, and that has to be enough.
My point is merely that we should be aware of the downsides of our choices and make that tradeoff consciously.
I think you’re spot on, and this is the reason I put “controversial” in front of it. I just felt like if we rewrote the blog post as a “What a writer who’s never learned to program’s code looks like to a developer” it would make no sense, so why should we accept it in it’s current form?
I think you’re spot on, and this is the reason I put “controversial” in front of it.
And I just can’t resist a good invitation for some discussion. Thank you for providing it!
most people writing these things aren’t paid.
I wasn’t paid to write Creating MAUI UI’s in C#. Didn’t stop me from doing a proper job of it.
I’m sorry to tell you, friend, that your article does this too. You don’t explain what XAML is, for instance. Certain sentences almost read like the satire you posted: “how to do in C# code the things which are currently done in XAML (such as binding)”. You also tell the reader to “edit the relevant line” which doesn’t help a total beginner.
The fact of the matter is that writing for the lowest common denominator takes an incredible amount of time and writing skill. Most of us don’t have one, some don’t have both.
If you keep practicing technical writing, I’m sure you’ll get there eventually. Just keep in mind that most people do not want to be technical writers
I’m sorry to tell you, friend, that your article does this too
Nope.
You don’t explain what XAML is, for instance
You know the article is about how to write a page and NOT use XAML, right?? 😂 If you don’t know what it is then you don’t need to (hence why I point out that it isn’t pre-requisite knowledge). If you do know what it is then that’s probably what brought you to my page to begin with - stop using it! 😂
Certain sentences almost read like the satire you posted:
Now read the links provided in the pre-requisite knowledge. You’re the second person who thinks people learn things by reading the first paragraph only.
You also tell the reader to “edit the relevant line” which doesn’t help a total beginner
Now read the links in the pre-requisite knowledge, clone the repo, follow the instructions up to that point in the article, and guess which line you’re on! 😂
I’m sure you’ll get there eventually
It’s there already, if you had just bothered reading it all and following the instructions, instead of just criticising without even trying it
Just keep in mind that most people do not want to be technical writers
Probably because of people like you who criticise them without even trying to follow the directions to begin with. I’m guessing you also submit issues which say “It doesn’t work. Please fix”
I don’t want to make this a “gotcha”, but you say no xaml knowledge needed but then talk about it and have the reader touch them (mostly delete). You say you usually delete this xaml file but I don’t need to do that. Why? What do I gain or lose? I thought I didn’t need to know xaml?
I read your entire tutorial. I’ve been in the industry for a while. I found it hard to read but mostly due to the sentence structure. I suppose if english isn’t your first language (it isn’t mine), that might explain it. I can give you more comprehensive feedback, if you’d like.
I know hearing constructive criticism is hard, but it is part of the learning process.
I don’t want to make this a “gotcha”, but you say no xaml knowledge needed but then talk about it and have the reader touch them (mostly delete).
I only have them delete the XAML files. You don’t need to know anything about what’s inside a file to delete it 😂 Also, I only talk about the benefits of getting rid of them, which also doesn’t require any knowledge of XAML.
You say you usually delete this xaml file but I don’t need to do that. Why?
No I don’t! I say disabling implicit usings is optional, and do explain why I do it, then delete the XAML files. You seem to have conflated 2 successive paragraphs.
I thought I didn’t need to know xaml?
You don’t. They’re never used anywhere in the whole thing. We only delete the XAML files, then replace them with C#.
I read your entire tutorial.
Not very carefully apparently.
I’m sorry dude, but the other person is completely correct. You don’t explain a lot of things and then you use them as a basis for knowledge in the tutorial. For example Git and GitHub are both prerequisites that you don’t mention. Knowledge of layout is also a prereq. You don’t explain what binding is. There’s a ton of typos. You missed putting certain things in code blocks. You should every once in a while show the full class or file so the reader knows what they missed. There’s a lot that could be improved here.
Nobody is telling you off for this. You didn’t do anything wrong. Writing tutorials, even bad ones or mediocre ones is really appreciated. It’s hard to write a tutorial. It’s really hard to write a really good tutorial. Every tutorial I write I try to get feedback from colleagues to see what I could have done better, what isn’t clear. There’s always something.
I’m sorry dude, but the other person is completely correct
No they’re not.
You don’t explain a lot of things
You mean all the things that have links to resources about them in the pre-requisite knowledge section? 😂
For example Git and GitHub are both prerequisites that you don’t mention
Now go read through the links in the pre-requisite section. Also, they’re not pre-requisites - it isn’t necessary to know how to use them, giving cloning the repo is optional - hence not listed as pre-requisites. See how that works?
Knowledge of layout is also a prereq
No it isn’t. I specifically cover exactly that. I see you didn’t read it.
You don’t explain what binding is.
Yes I do! 😂 As do the links in the pre-requisite knowledge. Again showing you didn’t read it
There’s a ton of typos.
says person not identifying any
You missed putting certain things in code blocks
You ever tried doing that on dev.to? Guess what? There’s no tutorials for it! 😂 (the thing they said to do doesn’t work)
You should every once in a while show the full class or file so the reader knows what they missed
It’s done at the beginning. Also there’s the repo. Again showing you didn’t read it.
There’s a lot that could be improved here.
says person with made-up criticisms from not having actually read through it.
It’s hard to write a tutorial.
No it isn’t. Assume the reader knows nothing.
Others are debating the point about the doc itself, so I won’t go there, but just because you enjoyed doing it, doesn’t mean others do, or have the time.
I happen to write really detailed documentation, because I like to, I like the formality of it. However, as I stated in my other comment my complaint is about the assumptions made in the blog post. Specifically:
I just felt like if we rewrote the blog post as a “What a writer who’s never learned to program’s code looks like to a developer” it would make no sense, so why should we accept it in it’s current form?
Others are debating the point about the doc itself
Most of those others have shown they only read the first paragraph (which is literally the introduction, not the start of the tutorial itself).
just because you enjoyed doing it, doesn’t mean others do, or have the time
I never implied otherwise. I simply used it to show it only takes a few minutes to include pre-requisites for the thing you are writing, compete with links to relevant resources. Microsoft documentation never does either of those things, and those people are paid to write it. Then they ignore your issues that you raise. I forget his name now, but I remember one guy there who did this all the time - would just close your issue and not update the document. I remember one time James Montemagno fixed up an issue I raised, but this other guy, never. I just gave up on raising issues. I’m surprised his name isn’t burnt into my memory with PTSD 😂
Yeah, documentation isn’t as good as it could be, and it would increase the accessibility of software if it was better.
The amount of time and skill it takes to write excellent and accessible documentation is just not reasonable for most developers, unless you have dedicated technical writers or it’s a personal project without true deadlines.
So what? It may arguably be not a developer’s fault, but it is everyone’s problem, given the growing dystopian alternatives to an accessible distributed software ecosystem. A problem can be acknowledged without admitting blame. Happy cake day btw.
I envy some people’s ability to come up with nonsense words.
Like the Turbo Encabulator
You might enjoy !vxjunkies@lemmy.ca~
Galabrup, anyone?
I prefer Fizkada more.
Sternocleidomastoid, oh wait, that’s a word. Dang it.
How about Bifurcation😅
This is a much harder game for Germans.
Ponblopdring!
People say “RTFM” then you get to the manual and it’s this
Microsoft Manuals…
That is spot on. Usually you would expect the manual to be hit and miss when it comes to troubleshooting but Microsoft is consistently miss, skipping the important parts and details.
Microsofts documentation is also increasingly just outright wrong:
if you spend enough time looking up things about their newer products like M365, defender, or azure, especially when it comes to scripting related to those, there’s a ton of simply outdated info on the official docs that makes it really difficult to figure out why your setup isn’t doing what it’s supposed to.
from changed variable names, to missing functions, to unexplained buttons, etc., etc.
the newer docs are straight up trash!
you’re better off searching around for forum posts or whatever, than using the official docs…
Microsofts documentation is also increasingly just outright _wrong_:
There used to be a spot on joke about Microsoft documentation taking the piss out of the fact that it was always 100% accurate but at the same time pretty useless. That joke hasn’t been relevant for a while.
It’s so frustrating trying to find out how to do something in one of the admin centres for M365 and you find a Microsoft document with exactly what you need in it only to find out that the UI has changed and the steps don’t work now. Did they move it? Did they remove it? Who knows?
our admins are regularly straight up fighting against this bs!
“where the fuck has this fucked off to now?? it was right here last month?!”
so glad I’m not doing MS administration…
If you are used to documentation like MS’s, then AI responses probably look more reasonable and useful. If AI results look better than your own docs you should feel really bad.
this is the part that’s really frustrating:
i sometimes feel forced to use chatGPT (duck.ai) to simply search for Microsoft things, because search engines only return SEO garbage with the exact same content spammed across like a million “tech tips for beginners” sites…and the docs, as established, are pretty useless…
keep in mind: i fucking hats “AI”.
making me use it makes me not have anything to do with whatever you’re selling.
it’s getting progressively more impossible to simply use MS products, because the information you need to use them is so hidden away!
combine those two things and ta-da: that’s why all my stuff at home is running linux now.
you’re better off searching around for forum posts or whatever, than using the official docs
Yep, that’s why I started the Lemmy .NET MAUI Community - try and reassemble the collective experts who got scattered when Microsoft shutdown the old Xamarin forum - they had been invaluable when I was trying to learn Xamarin from the Microsoft resources.
oh hey, that’s great! thank you!
Amazon is no better. Go look up the correct parameter format required to set a compliance lock on an object in S3 via the API. Now try it yourself. Surprise!
Also, requiring login.
Link 1: Pencil selection guide Link 2: Ovals vs. circles Link 3: Wings Link 4: Bird feet
Basically Hello World using the win32 API. I believe I first encountered this before college, and it took actually professional dev experience to really understand it.
Another problem is that people skim to the “most important bits” without knowing they’re skipping something important. Then some of those people complain how the manual is shit.
I guess it could be shit if it is way too verbose though.
This reminds me of the “WHY IS THERE CODE??? MAKE A FUCKING .EXE FILE AND GIVE IT TO ME” post that blew up a while back
https://copypastatext.com/i-am-new-to-github-and-i-have-lots-to-say/
And both boil down to
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guides can be prioritized more in some projects and it might be in the best interest of the creators to do that
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different guides are written for different audiences, sometimes a guide isn’t meant for the average person
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