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AWS documentation is now open source and on GitHub

aws.amazon.com

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Re: AWS documentation is now open source and on GitHub

#41

Post by TAForObvReasons »

samschooler wrote: post #33
always_good wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just think of all the uncompensated value you've given Y Combinator every time you've left a quality comment on their forum.

Then again, Y Combinator makes no direct money off HN. AWS’ docs, if they are quality directly impacts their profit because more people can use their services more easily.

YC does two things that aren't directly making money but are definitely helping their portfolio companies:

1) Special ad positions with front-page placement (currently #22 is "Willing (YC S15) Is Hiring a UI / UX Designer" https://willing.com/designer , a privileged post that can't be voted or commented on)

2) The moderators can and sometimes do intervene by removing certain comments that are critical of YC companies.

Comments make the forum more interesting to the community, which increases eyeballs and makes the front page spots more valuable. And shaping the discourse helps with damage control when necessary.

Re: AWS documentation is now open source and on GitHub

#42

Post by always_good »

samschooler wrote: post #33
always_good wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just think of all the uncompensated value you've given Y Combinator every time you've left a quality comment on their forum.

Then again, Y Combinator makes no direct money off HN. AWS’ docs, if they are quality directly impacts their profit because more people can use their services more easily.

Profit, influence, power. They can be exchanged for each other.

YC doesn't make money directly from the forum. But neither does AWS from their docs.

If you have a problem with a company making money directly from your content, why doesn't it bother you if they are gaining something else off you like influence? Do you think HN confers zero value to YC?

Re: AWS documentation is now open source and on GitHub

#43

Post by ioddly »

jjeaff wrote: post #3

Brilliant. Let unpaid volunteers fix and update the documentation for your proprietary systems so you don't have to pay someone to do it. Can someone explain to me why people will inevitably put in countless hours of free labor for Amazon here?

As someone who codes offline a lot, I really appreciate when I can just clone a repo to have a full copy of the documentation.

Re: AWS documentation is now open source and on GitHub

#44

Post by always_good »

jjeaff wrote: post #24
always_good wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's kind of like wondering why someone would make an open source project better when the person that owns the repo gets all the credit. Or all the competitors they might be inadvertently helping out by improving the project. Sometimes it's nice to just make things better.

With an open source project, I can fork and use the code for myself and contribute back to the project. But if I spend a bunch of time fixing AWS docs, it's not like I have any need to fork it and use 8t as documentation for my own AWS-like service.

Improving an open source project's docs aren't likely to help you, either.

Intro-level documentation changes are the most common pull requests I get on any of my projects. And the people making them are not the ones being helped by intro-level docs.

It's a clear case of experts helping beginners.

Re: AWS documentation is now open source and on GitHub

#45

Post by justicezyx »

samschooler wrote: post #33
always_good wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just think of all the uncompensated value you've given Y Combinator every time you've left a quality comment on their forum.

Then again, Y Combinator makes no direct money off HN. AWS’ docs, if they are quality directly impacts their profit because more people can use their services more easily.

AWS does makes no direct money off documentations either.

Engineers generally have a natural tendancy to fix things, and documentaitons are worth fixing. And it also helps their future work.

Re: AWS documentation is now open source and on GitHub

#46

Post by hamzilla »

jjeaff wrote: post #3

Brilliant. Let unpaid volunteers fix and update the documentation for your proprietary systems so you don't have to pay someone to do it. Can someone explain to me why people will inevitably put in countless hours of free labor for Amazon here?

Ultimately I make docs for myself so it's easier next time. And i forget ... everything.

Re: AWS documentation is now open source and on GitHub

#47

Post by justinjlynn »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #41
samschooler wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again, Y Combinator makes no direct money off HN. AWS’ docs, if they are quality directly impacts their profit because more people can use their services more easily.

YC does two things that aren't directly making money but are definitely helping their portfolio companies: 1) Special ad positions with front-page placement (currently #22 is "Willing (YC S15) Is Hiring a UI / UX Designer" https://willing.com/designer , a privileged post that can't be voted or commented on) 2) The moderators can and sometimes do intervene by removing certain comments that are critical of YC companies…

Nothing is free. If you aren't paying, you're the product.

Re: AWS documentation is now open source and on GitHub

#48

Post by johnhenry »

ivansavz wrote: post #32

It's interesting that they mix markdown and restructured text. ReST is clearly the superior formatting language, but markdown is so much easier to pick up and use.

Just curious, I've never actually heard of "ReST" as a format before now... I wonder if you might be able to explain what makes it superior to markdown?

Re: AWS documentation is now open source and on GitHub

#49

Post by always_good »

eropple wrote: post #27
est wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think php.net's documentation with comments was better.

That documentation devolved over time into a tire fire of bad and dangerous advice.

It really needed curation.

At worst, it was a mix of old advice, bad advice, dangerous code snippets, and people treating it like Stack Overflow.

Usually the first N posts were some really shitty solutions and someone would have to scroll way down to see a reply that calls them out and offers a good solution. But someone browsing the docs are most likely to use the first solution that seems good enough, particularly beginners.

Re: AWS documentation is now open source and on GitHub

#50

Post by dlhavema »

tdb7893 wrote: post #19
jjeaff wrote: post #3

Brilliant. Let unpaid volunteers fix and update the documentation for your proprietary systems so you don't have to pay someone to do it. Can someone explain to me why people will inevitably put in countless hours of free labor for Amazon here?

I've noticed documentation bugs and submitted them to amazon before they open sourced this. Overall for documentation I've just fixed things as I find them and I've never seen it as much of a burden and it helps the community

Same here. This just kinda standardizes the process in a way that makes edits super clear...
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