Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter October/November 2006

November 2006 Meeting -- Documenting APIs: Your First Week on the Job
Presented by James F. Bisso

The November meeting is on Wednesday, November 15, 2006, from 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm at the Elephant & Castle in San Francisco's financial district. For details about the location and instructions for purchasing tickets, visit www.stc-sf.org/stc-meetings.htm.

About the Presentation

For a technical communicator, the task of documenting an API can be overwhelming. By having a defined methodology for documenting APIs, the technical communicator can bring order to chaos.

This presentation illustrates one such methodology for understanding the API documentation process and documentation deliverables. The presentation will provide a high-level overview of:

• Defining your audience, including requisite domain knowledge
• Understanding the place the API occupies in the company's marketing strategy
• Planning the documentation deliverables
• Researching the API
• Preparing to interview the engineering SMEs (Subject Matter Experts)
• Effective interviewing techniques

About the Speaker

James F. Bisso, M.A., has almost 20 years of experience writing API documentation for such companies as Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Inprise, and Taligent. Jim has also taught computer science and documenting APIs at UC Berkeley Extension, Golden Gate University, Mills College, and the University of San Francisco. Currently CTO of Bitzone LLC and a staff software engineer at Sun Microsystems, he has also been a corporate trainer for Oracle University and Bitzone LLC.

Jim is co-author of Documenting APIs: Writing Developer Documentation for Java™ APIs and SDKs, which is available only from http://www.bitzone.com.

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