Lois Patterson: Markup Languages and Warp-Speed Documentation

MARKUP LANGUAGES AND WARP-SPEED

DOCUMENTATION

Lois Patterson – Presentation

What this presentation is about

• How software development culture is moving towards Dev Ops

• Using markup languages to adjust to the Dev Ops culture

• Advantages and disadvantages of different markup languages

• How content written in a markup language is converted to attractive documentation

• How you can switch to using markup languages

Lois Patterson - Presentation

In the olden days …


Today’s demands

• Weekly, daily, hourly releases


How about you?

• What type of team?


Agile development

• Agile workflows <-> continual, timely updates of code and docs


Are you agile?


Book recommendation:Modern Technical Writing: An Introduction to Software Documentation Kindle Edition

by Andrew Etter


Documentation is not separate from the product

• Part of the product, embedded in the product


Dev ops and doc ops

• Dev ops, doc ops

• Full stack approach


Markup languages and doc ops

• Simplify!

o Writing

o Docs production

o Integration of docs with product


What is a markup language?

• Plain text, with various tags or other elements that indicate how the text should be processed

• HTML is best-known

• XML – family of markup languages

• Simple, doc-friendly markup languages:

• reStructuredText

• AsciiDoc

• Markdown


Simple vs. complex markup languages

• DITA and DocBook

• reStructuredText, Markdown, and AsciiDoc

• Overhead versus structure


Markup languages foster content collaboration

• Learn a markup language quickly

• Constant documentation updates require cross-team contributors

• Make life easy for all contributors


Proprietary vs. open source

• Expensive and difficult tools, limited licenses

• Free tools, unlimited users


Markup + Processor

• General principle: Write doc in markup language

• Process the markup to get your final docs

• DITA Open Toolkit, Sphinx (for reStructuredText), Jekyll (for Markdown)

• Static site generators produce static HTML

• Dynamic site generators render on the fly

• GitHub processes various markup formats instantaneously


Let’s look at Markdown

• My portfolio page at GitHub



More about Github

• 35 million repositories!


GitHub, markup languages, and collaborative culture

• Github as an exemplar

• Full engagement from team

• Widespread contributions

• We’re in this together


Collaborative culture


You can be a contributor

• Help out open source software

• Learn new technologies

• Build your portfolio


Do you have a Github site?

• Will you get a Github site?


Nitty-gritty


Challenges of unstructured languages

• DITA forces unity among writers. Deviation is punished.

• Impose structure with templates and standards.

• “You can, but you shouldn’t.”

• Structure and unity particularly important if localization is happening.


reStructuredText


Let’s look at reStructuredText

• Start at readthedocs.org. (Docs at https://docs.readthedocs.io/ .)

• Python community origin

• Versatile

• Used with Sphinx static site generator


https://docs.readthedocs.io/

Let’s look at reStructuredText

• ReadTheDocs page, editable at GitHub

• Rendered at GitHub

• Rendered at ReadTheDocs.org

• You can do the same!


Sample reStructuredText template


Sample reStructuredText template


Look at a specific example


restructuredText looks like this

Getting Started

===============

This document will show you how to get up and running with Read the Docs.

You will have your docs imported on Read the Docs in 5 minutes,

displayed beautifully for the world.

If you are already using Sphinx or Markdown for your docs, skip ahead to

:ref:`import-docs`.

Sphinx transforms restructuredText

Compare restructuredText to DITA XML

•

XML (DITA XML) – VERY SIMPLE FILE• <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

• <!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">

• <topic id="topic_qk5_knc_fg">

• <title>Troubleshooting</title>

• <body>

• <p>Troubleshoot most common issues.</p>

• </body>

• </topic>

From source to docs with Sphinx

•

SPHINX AND RESTRUCTUREDTEXT

• reStructuredText (reST) is rather like Markdown.

• Sphinx is a static site generator.

• restructuredText other stuff (HTML, PDF, etc.)

• restructuredText/Sphinx:: Markdown/Jekyll

SPHINX, DOCUTILS, RST - SUMMARY• Output formats

• Extensive cross-references

• Hierarchical structure

• Automatic indices

• Code handling

• Extensions

• Contributed extensions

• Uses reStructuredText for markup, and Docutils for parsing

See more: http://sphinx-doc.org/index.html

http://sphinx-doc.org/index.html

Want to author in reStructuredText and generate in Sphinx?

Install Python first. (We used a 2.7.x version, but 3.3+ supported too.)

Sphinx Tutorial: http://sphinx-doc.org/tutorial.html

YouTube too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oJsUvBQyHBs

Look, copy, build, experiment

http://sphinx-doc.org/tutorial.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oJsUvBQyHBs

Static site generators

• Server load reduced

• Less prone to network difficulties and intermittent errors

• Speed, security

• Available offline (many clients require this)

• Recent count: 394 different ones

• Choosing a well-supported one is key

• Disadvantages too


Incorporating content from code

• Pull content from the code

• DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself)


Automate, automate, automate


Organization – still important


WHY WE LEFT THE CUSTOM XML WORLD

• Custom XML locked us in.

• HTML-based systems (e.g., MadCap Flare) do not easily integrate into our vision of all devs write

• Did not really leave after all

GREAT THINGS ABOUT SPHINX AND RST

• Well-developed eco-system

• Python!

• Versatile outputs

• Easy to write

• Easy to read

• Text-based

• Encourages topic-based authoring!

MORE BENEFITS

• Everyone writes

• Tool-agnostic (emacs, vim, Notepad++, SublimeText, whatever you love)

• Version-control friendly

OLD VS. NEW

Structured XML• Proprietary format

• Complex build machinery

• Tightly coupled with product (in a bad way)

• Supports MathJax

Positives

Enforced programming structure

It’s ours!

Sphinx/rsT• Open format

• Easy to build

• Easy to write

• Easy to read

• Supports MathJax

• Negatives

• Some customization needed

TYPICAL CONVERSION WORKFLOW (XML TO RST)

• High-level website design

• Create templates (for our sanity)

• Convert content

• Create content

• (All the time be building)

• Integrate into product and build system

WEBSITE DESIGN (DOCUMENTATION SYSTEM)

• A corporate-branded site, not a personal or open-source look

• Standard UX and design work

• Liaise with Marketing and other stakeholders

• jinja templating engines are a starting point

CREATE RESTRUCTUREDTEXT TEMPLATES

• restructuredText allows you to author without much structure (ironic?)

• Enforce structure with templates and code reviews.

CONVERT CONTENT

• Pandoc!http://www.pandoc.org/

• Semi-manualCustom scripts

http://www.pandoc.org/

ALWAYS BE BUILDING

Know how your docs look at any moment. (Continuous integration for docs.)

INTEGRATE INTO PRODUCT BUILD SYSTEM

CODE PRACTICES FOR DOCUMENTATION

• Code review

• Version control

• Automated testing

WHAT ABOUT?

• Content reuse?

• Content management systems?

CASE STUDY

• Rackspace (along with NASA invented OpenStack) switched/is switching OpenStack docs from DocBook XML to Sphinx/RST.

• http://justwriteclick.com/2015/02/23/state-of-the-migration-to-sphinxrst/

• https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Documentation/Migrate

http://justwriteclick.com/2015/02/23/state-of-the-migration-to-sphinxrst/

https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Documentation/Migrate

CUSTOM EXTENSIONS

Docs must pull information from the code in unique ways.

CREATE, USE MORE EXTENSIONS

Sphinx has so many options, just finding what is available takes time.

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER

NOT SO BLAMELESS POST-MORTEM

COULD HAVE STARTED SOONER

But Sphinx did not exist way back when ….

MORE AUTOMATION

Lack of time, but still …

MAKE TASKS MORE GRANULAR

Too big and scary a task? Break it down!

SHOULD YOU USE MARKUP LANGUAGES?

IT DEPENDS

Consider:

• Markdown (different flavors)

• AsciiDoc

• DocBook

• DITA XML

• Or ?

WHAT NOT TO DO

• Design your custom bespoke system from scratch by yourself.

• Except if …

RESOURCES• http://sphinx-doc.org/

• http://readthedocs.org

• http://www.pandoc.org





http://sphinx-doc.org/

http://readthedocs.org/

http://www.pandoc.org/





In summary


• Technical writers must work faster than ever

• Technical writers must collaborate across teams

• Markup languages facilitate a collaborative culture

• You have huge flexibility in the solutions you choose

• Structure, standards, and process are as important as ever

THANK YOU!

• Lois Patterson

• [email protected]

• Twitter: @LoisRP

• Tumblr: http://www.AnAPIaDay.tumblr.com

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.anapiaday.tumblr.com/

Lois Patterson: Markup Languages and Warp-Speed Documentation

Leadership & Management