Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
Documentation as Empathy
Search
ericholscher
October 03, 2015
Technology
1
250
Documentation as Empathy
Presentation from Open Source & Feelings.
ericholscher
October 03, 2015
Tweet
Share
More Decks by ericholscher
See All by ericholscher
Introduction to Django Channels - ConFoo Vancouver 2016
ericholscher
0
230
Understanding Documentation Systems - ConFoo Vancouver 2016
ericholscher
0
290
Python Documentation: Past, Present, & Future
ericholscher
3
340
Understanding Documentation Systems
ericholscher
1
280
Introduction to Sphinx & Read the Docs Djangocon 2015
ericholscher
0
170
Announcing Read the Docs for Business
ericholscher
1
230
Write the Docs NA 2014 Introduction
ericholscher
0
160
Introduction to Sphinx & Read the Docs
ericholscher
3
500
Documentation Journey
ericholscher
1
120
Other Decks in Technology
See All in Technology
品質と速度の両立:生成AI時代の品質保証アプローチ
odasho
1
340
面倒な作業はAIにおまかせ。Flutter開発をスマートに効率化
ruideengineer
0
250
freeeのアクセシビリティの現在地 / freee's Current Position on Accessibility
ymrl
2
190
American airlines ®️ USA Contact Numbers: Complete 2025 Support Guide
airhelpsupport
0
380
Getting to Know Your Legacy (System) with AI-Driven Software Archeology (WeAreDevelopers World Congress 2025)
feststelltaste
1
130
使いたいMCPサーバーはWeb APIをラップして自分で作る #QiitaBash
bengo4com
0
1.9k
LangChain Interrupt & LangChain Ambassadors meetingレポート
os1ma
2
310
成長し続けるアプリのためのテストと設計の関係、そして意思決定の記録。
sansantech
PRO
0
120
AI専用のリンターを作る #yumemi_patch
bengo4com
5
4.3k
CDKTFについてざっくり理解する!!~CloudFormationからCDKTFへ変換するツールも作ってみた~
masakiokuda
1
140
20250705 Headlamp: 專注可擴展性的 Kubernetes 用戶界面
pichuang
0
270
「良さそう」と「とても良い」の間には 「良さそうだがホンマか」がたくさんある / 2025.07.01 LLM品質Night
smiyawaki0820
1
560
Featured
See All Featured
Embracing the Ebb and Flow
colly
86
4.7k
Building an army of robots
kneath
306
45k
StorybookのUI Testing Handbookを読んだ
zakiyama
30
5.9k
Building a Modern Day E-commerce SEO Strategy
aleyda
42
7.4k
Testing 201, or: Great Expectations
jmmastey
43
7.6k
A designer walks into a library…
pauljervisheath
207
24k
10 Git Anti Patterns You Should be Aware of
lemiorhan
PRO
656
60k
"I'm Feeling Lucky" - Building Great Search Experiences for Today's Users (#IAC19)
danielanewman
229
22k
Principles of Awesome APIs and How to Build Them.
keavy
126
17k
Site-Speed That Sticks
csswizardry
10
690
The Illustrated Children's Guide to Kubernetes
chrisshort
48
50k
Fashionably flexible responsive web design (full day workshop)
malarkey
407
66k
Transcript
Open Source & Feelings Seattle October 3, 2015 Documentation as
Empathy Eric Holscher (@ericholscher)
7 years ago
I was writing Perl for the Military
No • Documentation • Version Control • Tests
It all started with a PDF
Serendipity • Feb 20: http://ericholscher.com/blog/ 2008/feb/20/job-hunt/ • Feb 21: https://jacobian.org/writing/
sailing-on/
Documentation Culture
People don’t use projects that don’t have docs
I start writing docs • Django Kong • Django Test
Utils • Django Reusable App Docs
Jacob was a huge influence • 2009: https://jacobian.org/writing/great- documentation/ •
2011: http://pyvideo.org/video/403/ pycon-2011--writing-great-documentation
Created Read the Docs to reduce friction to writing &
publishing docs
From Tool to Understanding
Read the Docs was started in 2010
None
Started Write the Docs in 2013
Learned about a whole community of writers
None
Documentation is more than a tool
Technical writers know what makes so ware understandable
More communities are valuing documentation
Documentation as guilt
Coding & Testing have objective results
Documentation is a “so skill”
All programmers feel guilt about this
Leads to putting off writing docs
We need to lower the barriers in our industry to
writing documentation
Why it matters
Empathy
You don’t want a community full of people who don’t
read documentation
Documentation is Outreach
None
My path is the path of many others
“I can’t say I’m self taught. I’ve been taught by
the people who wrote the documentation” — @soulshake
Thanks writethedocs.org readthedocs.org