Do not spellcheck!

Generally speaking, you should spellcheck everything you write. Word has some fairly decent in-built spelling and grammar checking, and while it may not get everything, it’ll catch a lot. However, on occasion, there’s content you really don’t want to spellcheck. Case in point: API/developer documentation rife with code samples: yes, I did mean to spell it that way; yes, it is all one word; no, I don’t want to capitalise that just because it’s at the start of a line; no, I don’t want a space after that semi-colon… And by the time you’ve hit Ignore for the umpteenth time in a row, you realise you’re back in body text, and you’re not sure how long you’ve been on auto-pilot clicking Ignore, and who knows what garbage you’ve said is ok to leave as is now, and you may as well go right back to page 1 and start over. So what do you do? Forego spellchecking entirely? Copy and paste the non-code-sample bits to a separate doc, spellcheck, then merge back in? Or magically tag the code samples as not to be spellchecked and live happily ever after? It’s a leading question, I admit it. The last option it is, and today’s post is on how to do just that! Continue reading “Do not spellcheck!”

What does API documentation look like?

How long is a piece of string? If you’re starting a new API documentation project and want to see examples of how other people have tackled presenting the information, head on over to http://www.programmableweb.com/ which catalogs a plethora of public-domain API docs in its directory, as well as providing API-related news articles, and some useful how tos.