Technical writing Memes

Posts tagged with Technical writing

Resume-Driven Development: The Light Bulb Edition

Resume-Driven Development: The Light Bulb Edition
The classic resume inflation algorithm at work! What's funnier than watching someone transform the mundane task of screwing in a light bulb into what sounds like they single-handedly revolutionized NASA's illumination infrastructure. The deployment terminology is particularly chef's-kiss - as if changing a bulb involved CI/CD pipelines and a Kubernetes cluster. And let's appreciate the "zero cost overruns" metric... because spending $2 on a light bulb is definitely within budget parameters. Next time you update your LinkedIn, remember: you didn't just fix a bug - you "architected and implemented a mission-critical exception handling framework with 100% resolution rate."

Quotes From The Greats

Quotes From The Greats
The eternal wisdom of programming: even terrible documentation feels like a gift when you've spent hours staring at undocumented code wondering why the hell it works at all. Nothing quite matches that specific joy of finding a single cryptic comment after debugging for 3 hours. "// Don't touch this or everything breaks" - ah yes, the pinnacle of technical writing. And yet, we all know that one codebase with documentation so pristine it practically whispers sweet nothings in your ear. A rare and beautiful creature indeed.

Documentation Is Like Sex

Documentation Is Like Sex
The eternal truth of software development captured in one painful analogy. Good documentation is like finding a unicorn riding a rainbow - rare but magnificent. Bad documentation is that cryptic comment from 2013 that just says "fixes stuff." But when you're staring into the void of an undocumented codebase at 2AM, even that single-line README feels like a lifeline thrown by a merciful deity. The bar is so low it's practically a tripping hazard.

The Documentation Disappointment

The Documentation Disappointment
The eternal promise of documentation vs. the crushing reality. You spend hours debugging some obscure error, finally surrender your ego and check the docs, only to find such helpful gems as "returns a value if successful" or my personal favorite: "this function does what it's supposed to do." Thanks for nothing. The only thing more useless than bad documentation is the mandatory team-building exercise where Dave from accounting tells us about his weekend kayaking trip.

Get To The Fcking Point Omfg

Get To The Fcking Point Omfg
Left side: Microsoft Community with their 500-word essay on how to get a string length in C#, complete with personal introduction, life story, and excessive technical explanation. Right side: Stack Overflow with the chad-like answer of just "str.Length" - because real programmers don't need your life story, they need the damn property name. The duality of programming help in its purest form. One treats you like you've never seen a computer before; the other assumes you just need the one critical piece of syntax to continue your coding rampage.

The Holy Grail Of CS Books

The Holy Grail Of CS Books
Finding a CS book is like dating - there are plenty of options, but the perfect match is rare. First, you're just happy to find one that's not completely terrible. Then you discover it actually explains concepts with clarity instead of academic word salad. But when the author uses YOUR tech stack? That's like finding out your date also loves that obscure indie band you're obsessed with. And the final boss level? The author sprinkles in genuinely funny jokes between explaining binary trees. That red-hot explosion of joy is the exact face every developer makes when discovering their new programming bible doesn't read like it was written by a compiler.

The Documentation Detective Strikes Again

The Documentation Detective Strikes Again
The AUDACITY of finding a typo in documentation! There you are, struggling with some obscure API for 3 hours, and suddenly—GASP—you spot it! That missing semicolon or misspelled parameter that's been RUINING YOUR LIFE! The pure VINDICATION of knowing it wasn't your fault all along! You transform into a documentation vigilante, pointing at the error like it personally insulted your entire coding ancestry. Time to screenshot this bad boy and share it with your team with the most passive-aggressive "interesting documentation" message humanly possible.

My Teacher Always Says: Do Your Project With Knowledge That Your User Is Stupid

My Teacher Always Says: Do Your Project With Knowledge That Your User Is Stupid
Developer: "Tea bags are so intuitive they don't need instructions." End user: *dunks entire tea bag, wrapper and all, into hot water* And that's why we write documentation for even the most "obvious" features. Users will find ways to break your software that you couldn't imagine in your worst fever dreams. The line between intuitive and incomprehensible is thinner than your project deadline.

You Need To Be Very Detailed

You Need To Be Very Detailed
When the PM says "make sure your documentation is thorough," and you take it literally. Nothing says developer energy like documenting the painfully obvious while completely ignoring the complex parts of your codebase. "How to use this API? Figure it out yourself. How to open a pizza box? Let me write you a dissertation." Ten years in the industry and I've yet to see documentation that isn't either stating the absolute obvious or so cryptic it might as well be written in hieroglyphics. The middle ground simply doesn't exist in our universe.

God Save Me From The Docs

God Save Me From The Docs
Writing documentation is such a heroic act that you need medical attention afterward. That single sentence probably took 4 hours, 3 existential crises, and the sacrifice of whatever will to live you had left. The worst part? Your colleagues will still ask "but what does this function actually do?" next week. Documentation: the only task where doing 1% feels like running a marathon.

From Hatred To Devotion: The LaTeX Journey

From Hatred To Devotion: The LaTeX Journey
First you hate LaTeX with its bizarre syntax and formatting quirks. Then you reluctantly try it. Next thing you know, you're completely entranced by those perfectly typeset equations and bibliographies that actually work. It's the Stockholm syndrome of document preparation systems. You start screaming at it, then you're eating out of its hand, and finally you're staring dreamily into space wondering how you ever lived without those beautiful kerned mathematical symbols.

Just Read The Documentation (They Said)

Just Read The Documentation (They Said)
Ah yes, technical documentation at its finest - a LEGO diagram with arrows pointing to... somewhere? The irony of senior devs saying "just read the docs" when the docs themselves are a cryptic puzzle that requires three PhDs and a decoder ring to understand. It's like being told the treasure map is super clear, but it's actually written in invisible ink and you need to stand on your head at midnight during a full moon to see it. Documentation authors seem to think we're all psychic and can magically fill in the 47 missing steps between "import library" and "congratulations on your functioning application!"