Automatic Documentation for Software
This is my chapter for the book Current Practices and Trends in Technical and Professional Communication.
Many software products are complex and have anything from a dozen to thousands of configuration parameters. This is particularly true for distributed or cloud-based systems. Traditional documentation methods have trouble keeping up with development, especially in Agile development environments where there may be many subtly different product versions.
It is increasingly important to automate as much of the documentation process as possible, as this reduces the burden of effort required to create documentation, and because it ensures that documentation is always up to date. It also makes it much easier to produce different versions of the documentation to match the different software versions.
SPF and Sending Email
A short introduction to using Sender Policy Framework, or SPF, a technology that can be used to prevent spam.
Filing Paperwork
A description of the filing procedures for a paperwork-heavy estate agent’s office. The target audience is administration staff, who may not have English as a first language.
Validating XML Documents
Written in DITA, this document describes how to validate an XML document using xmllint. It contains two DITA tasks, a DITA concept, and a DITA reference. The DITA Open Toolkit was used to generate versions in HTML and PDF.