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Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

philipkiely.com

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Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#11

Post by philipkiely »

sixhobbits wrote: post #7

Hey Philip, really great to see you run with this! I know you mentioned to me that this repository[0] where I try to keep a short list of publishers that pay for this kind of writing was an early inspiration and I'm still hoping to grow that list a lot after June when I spend more time focusing on technical writing too. As others have said, that's a really great looking list of interviewees. My only question is where…

The table of contents outlines the book, which is about 30,000 of my words and 28,000 words of interview excerpts. Then, the appendix contains the full transcripts of all 11 interviews, 45,000 words (which does overlap with the interview excerpt word count from earlier).

Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#12

Post by petercooper »

philipkiely wrote: post #2

Hi HN, I have been working on Writing for Software Developers for six months and I'm so excited to finally launch it! I set myself the goal of launching before my (now virtual) university graduation and I'm proud to have hit that goal by six days. Right now the book is 12 dollars off (launch pricing) and you can read chapter 1 for free at https://philipkiely.com/assets/files/wfsd_chapter1_sample.pd... The book featur…

Congratulations, Philip :-)

Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#13

Post by philipkiely »

petercooper wrote: post #12
philipkiely wrote: post #2

Hi HN, I have been working on Writing for Software Developers for six months and I'm so excited to finally launch it! I set myself the goal of launching before my (now virtual) university graduation and I'm proud to have hit that goal by six days. Right now the book is 12 dollars off (launch pricing) and you can read chapter 1 for free at https://philipkiely.com/assets/files/wfsd_chapter1_sample.pd... The book featur…

Congratulations, Philip :-)

Thank you, and thank you for the interview!

Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#14

Post by eykd »

philipkiely wrote: post #10
chpmrc wrote: post #9

Writing seems to be the single best thing you can do as a professional, in other areas as well. I know people who were hired because of a single Medium article that got a lot of traction (and made that person sort of a reference in the industry). What do you think about videos? I see lifestyle channels for devs and tech workers taking off but do you think there's a chance the same might happen for more technical chan…

I have very little experience with making videos, but some of my interview subjects do! Chris on Code makes great technical videos and livestreams. There is a bit of information specific to video in the book, but I think the information about the planning, outlining, and editing of technical content would be helpful to people making video.

Scriptwriting is just a particular form of writing, so any process you've developed would work whether someone is writing technical tutorials for video or sonnet form. :D

Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#15

Post by philipkiely »

eykd wrote: post #14
philipkiely wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have very little experience with making videos, but some of my interview subjects do! Chris on Code makes great technical videos and livestreams. There is a bit of information specific to video in the book, but I think the information about the planning, outlining, and editing of technical content would be helpful to people making video.

Scriptwriting is just a particular form of writing, so any process you've developed would work whether someone is writing technical tutorials for video or sonnet form. :D

Funny you should mention sonnets, Chapter 8 develops an example technical tutorial on generating sonnets by remixing Shakespeare's work.

Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#16

Post by eykd »

philipkiely wrote: post #15
eykd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scriptwriting is just a particular form of writing, so any process you've developed would work whether someone is writing technical tutorials for video or sonnet form. :D

Funny you should mention sonnets, Chapter 8 develops an example technical tutorial on generating sonnets by remixing Shakespeare's work.

That's what inspired me. :) I'm really curious to read this.

Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#17

Post by AminPhakhruddin »

Hey Philip,

Congrats on the launch of your new book. Will probably be checking out the first chapter after work.

As I've been hanging out more online, I've realized the increasing importance of writing. Even as a developer, writing seems to be a differentiating factor.

Other than your book, what are some other resources that you relied on in order to build up your skills as a writer? Or did you just rely on reading and emulating people's works.

Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#18

Post by swyx »

philipkiely wrote: post #2

Hi HN, I have been working on Writing for Software Developers for six months and I'm so excited to finally launch it! I set myself the goal of launching before my (now virtual) university graduation and I'm proud to have hit that goal by six days. Right now the book is 12 dollars off (launch pricing) and you can read chapter 1 for free at https://philipkiely.com/assets/files/wfsd_chapter1_sample.pd... The book featur…

thats awesome, congrats on launching!

as a fellow soon-to-be first time gumroad author - what was your tech stack for writing and publishing? i tried Ulysses and Scrivener and Leanpub and wasn't happy with any of them. looking to go from markdown to PDF/Epub/Mobi with good control over table of contents, footnotes, and linking between chapters.

i have a list of alternatives to explore.. just wondering what worked for you?

also - how did you mock up that book cover art on the landing page?

Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#20

Post by philipkiely »

AminPhakhruddin wrote: post #17

Hey Philip, Congrats on the launch of your new book. Will probably be checking out the first chapter after work. As I've been hanging out more online, I've realized the increasing importance of writing. Even as a developer, writing seems to be a differentiating factor. Other than your book, what are some other resources that you relied on in order to build up your skills as a writer? Or did you just rely on reading a…

Hey!

Thanks for checking it out. One of the reasons I wrote this book was because there were so few resources for me starting out. I mostly relied on my experience as a journalist with my college's newspaper plus the training we got in CS classes on writing good documentation.

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