What makes you go “wow” at documentation?
I’m looking for some inspiration on technical product documentation in the DevTools space (think cloud platforms, CI/CD, etc.)
Ask HN: What is the best product documentation you’ve ever seen?
1–10 of 43 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the best product documentation you’ve ever seen?
#2I would have to say that the best technical documentation I've ever come across has to be the Commodore User Manuals for VIC-20 and Commodore 64. Coupled with Compute!'s Gazette I was able to launch a career in BASIC programming. The user manuals completely documented the entire architecture of the KERNAL and BASIC system, as much as any programmer could need to do all sorts of things. Kudos to Commodore on documentation, definitely a lost art, and never found in Windows-based apps again.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best product documentation you’ve ever seen?
#3https://docs.posit.co/, it just makes sense the way everything is organized.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best product documentation you’ve ever seen?
#4Definitely - CloudFlare!
Re: Ask HN: What is the best product documentation you’ve ever seen?
#5I like semi-automatically generated docs like AWS API docs that contains in minimum the type information for every field there is, and often much more.
I don't like Python docs where it ends up on long winded explanation for specific cases but does not cover all arguments, or only mention some in passing.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best product documentation you’ve ever seen?
#6Re: Ask HN: What is the best product documentation you’ve ever seen?
#7I would have to say that the best technical documentation I've ever come across has to be the Commodore User Manuals for VIC-20 and Commodore 64. Coupled with Compute!'s Gazette I was able to launch a career in BASIC programming. The user manuals completely documented the entire architecture of the KERNAL and BASIC system, as much as any programmer could need to do all sorts of things. Kudos to Commodore on documenta…
Reminded me of having had a printout of the disassembled ROM at that time.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best product documentation you’ve ever seen?
#8SQLlite, no question.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best product documentation you’ve ever seen?
#9I would have to say that the best technical documentation I've ever come across has to be the Commodore User Manuals for VIC-20 and Commodore 64. Coupled with Compute!'s Gazette I was able to launch a career in BASIC programming. The user manuals completely documented the entire architecture of the KERNAL and BASIC system, as much as any programmer could need to do all sorts of things. Kudos to Commodore on documenta…
Similarly, the manual that came with the original ZX Spectrum rubber key version was awesome, with a complete description of Sinclair BASIC and all the Z80 assembler op codes for good luck. The 48k+ manual that followed was nowhere near as useful.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best product documentation you’ve ever seen?
#10Stripe