Wednesday, May 02, 2007

API Session with Rajeev Jain


Technical Writers April Meetup

Agenda: Documenting your first API.

Attendes: 17

The attendees' names along with their respective companies name are listed below:
1. Rajeev Jain - Zilog

2. Lakshmi RS - Gemini Software Solutions
3. Reuben - Arcot
4. Shashi Prabha - TCS
5. Sumit Kumar - Lucent
6. Naveen Chandra - Cokinetic
7. Harish BS - Keeline India Ltd
8. Abhilash Scariya - SAP Labs
9. Imran Ulla - First Indian Corp
10.S Gopal - Goodwill Technologies
11.Priyadarshini Narendran- Zilog
12.Mamata - Arcot
13.Jainthi Sasikumar - Argos Soft
14.Shoba Shanker - Citec
15.Anitha Sadashiv - Technopoint
16.Vishalakshi - Technopoint
17.Rajdeep Gupta – Infosys

Highlights: The session began at 10.30 am. After a formal round of introduction of participants by Rajdeep, Mr. Rajeev Jain started the presentation. It was quite an enthusiastic and interactive session.

Mr. Rajeev Jain started the session by explaining the basics of programming (sequence, selection and iteration). He said that if one understood the programming basics, documenting API was not difficult. Later he spoke on basics of API writing and how different was API documentation from GUI documentation. The do’s and dont’s while documenting APIs were also discussed.
The entire discussion was made easy to follow by providing apt examples of C++ APIs.

Clearing the doubt of one of the participants, Mr. Rajeev said that APIs could be classified into two-Internal APIs and External APIs. Usually, it is the external/exposed/customer facing APIs that are documented.

Answering another question as to what all should be included in the API documentation, Mr Rajeev said that the API document was like a dictionary to the programmer, which was never read from cover to cover, but referenced on an ad hoc basis. He also provided with a sample API document template, and explained the various headings and the reason for the particular heading order.
The meeting concluded with idea that API documentation was very easy, provided one knew the basics of programming and that, API documentation is also a lucrative career option.

The writers attending the meetup found it very informative and useful. Those who were in API documentation got a better idea of what to do, and the rest got an idea of what API documentation was all about.

A few attendees expressed their desire to be regular in meetup.

Mr. Rajdeep concluded the session by offering a vote of thanks to Mr. Rajeev Jain for delivering a wonderful presentation and to Technopoint for sponsoring the meetup.

You can view the meetup photos by clicking the following URL
http://techwriter.meetup.com/2/photos/?photoAlbumId=156076&photoId=1336004

The presentation will also be available at the Meetup website ; you can get in touch with Rajdeep for further details.


1 comment:

Danny Sam said...

Rajeev is great.. I have attened his sessiosn before Technopoint