Ask HN: awesome web-based documentation?

#1

Post by jon_dahl » Thu, Nov 18, 2010, 10:40 PM UTC

We're currently rewriting our documentation for Zencoder, and are looking for examples of good web-based docs. For example, I still use Slicehost tutorials for Linux work (http://articles.slicehost.com); they're really well done how-to guides for web hosting and linux sysadmin work.

Any other examples of good doc systems, or tips for creating effective documentation?

Re: Ask HN: awesome web-based documentation?

#2

Post by steveklabnik » Thu, Nov 18, 2010, 10:41 PM UTC

The best documentation I've ever read is Heroku's new addon provider docs: https://addons.heroku.com/provider

Click any of the links on the bottom. They're gorgeous, informative, and have fantastic examples.

Re: Ask HN: awesome web-based documentation?

#3

Post by makethetick » Thu, Nov 18, 2010, 11:08 PM UTC

jQuery and CakePHP have been very helpful in the past.

http://docs.jquery.com/Main_Page

http://book.cakephp.org/

Also, the PHP documentation is very good. The layout could be better but it's kept really simple with lots of examples to help you out.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/

Re: Ask HN: awesome web-based documentation?

#4

Post by dstik » Thu, Nov 18, 2010, 11:20 PM UTC

In addition to the great links already posted, if you are looking to really describe your code, check out the Underscore.js docs: http://documentcloud.github.com/underscore/docs/underscore.h...

Re: Ask HN: awesome web-based documentation?

#5

Post by stevelosh » Thu, Nov 18, 2010, 11:29 PM UTC

Flask's documentation is my favorite. I sat down and read all of it one night just because it was so beautiful and readable.

http://flask.pocoo.org/

Re: Ask HN: awesome web-based documentation?

#6

Post by Dylanfm » Thu, Nov 18, 2010, 11:30 PM UTC

dstik wrote: post #4

In addition to the great links already posted, if you are looking to really describe your code, check out the Underscore.js docs: http://documentcloud.github.com/underscore/docs/underscore.h...

Along with Coffeescript's docs and annotated source http://jashkenas.github.com/coffee-script/

Re: Ask HN: awesome web-based documentation?

#7

Post by gpjt » Thu, Nov 18, 2010, 11:34 PM UTC

stevelosh wrote: post #5

Flask's documentation is my favorite. I sat down and read all of it one night just because it was so beautiful and readable. http://flask.pocoo.org/

I think they generated it using Sphinx, which I heartily recommend as a tool -- you write your docs in REST, and it generates HTML (with built-in JavaScript search), PDF or other formats. It was developed for the latest version of the Python docs.

http://sphinx.pocoo.org/

Re: Ask HN: awesome web-based documentation?

#8

Post by tgriesser » Thu, Nov 18, 2010, 11:37 PM UTC

This is my favorite documentation... http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/

The table of contents dropdown tab at the top is a cool way to organize the different categories of information... the styling of the docs is also consistent and easily legible

Re: Ask HN: awesome web-based documentation?

#9

Post by aaronmoodie » Thu, Nov 18, 2010, 11:43 PM UTC

stevelosh wrote: post #5

Flask's documentation is my favorite. I sat down and read all of it one night just because it was so beautiful and readable. http://flask.pocoo.org/

Another vote for Flask. The Sintra docs are also quite good. http://www.sinatrarb.com/documentation

Re: Ask HN: awesome web-based documentation?

#10

Post by mkramlich » Thu, Nov 18, 2010, 11:47 PM UTC

Django and Linode