Book review: Writing for Developers

Question

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This review is about Writing for Developers by Piotr Sarna and Cynthia Dunlop from Manning.

I started my blog as a hobby seventeen years ago, in April 2008. At the time, I had no clue about technical writing. I'm pretty sure it was not even a thing back then: the only content aimed at developers was technical documentation. Since then, the landscape has changed a lot, to the point that companies hire for technical writer positions.

I was curious to compare what I learned by doing to the structured approach of a book. I ordered the book last year when it was still being written. It was published only early this year, and I was already reading (and reviewing!) DuckDB in action. I put it on the top of my reading pile list; I finally finished it: here's my review.

Facts

• 17 chapters, divided into four parts
• 2 appendices
• 345 pages
• $39.99 (eBook)

Chapters

Part 1 - Fundamentals

1. Why write
2. What to write
3. Captivating readers

Part 2 - Nailing the writing process

1. Creating your working draft
2. Optimizing your draft
3. Getting feedback
4. Ship it

Part 3 - Applying the blog post pattern

1. The "Bug Hunt" pattern
2. The "Rewrote It in X" pattern
3. The "How We Built It" pattern
4. The "Lessons Learned" pattern
5. The "Thoughts on Trends" pattern
6. The "Non-markety Product Perspectives" pattern
7. The "Benchmarks and Test Results" pattern

Part 4 - Promotion, adaptation, and expansion

1. Getting attention
2. From blog post to conference talk
3. So you want to write a book

Pros and cons

• In the first chapter, the authors list the most common reasons developers mention not to write posts. I have heard many of these reasons and can confirm their existence. Then, the authors address each of them and provide multiple counter-arguments.

• Part three is dedicated to blog post patterns; each chapter describes a pattern in detail. Reading this made me realize that most blog posts fall into a specific and easily identifiable category. The authors structured each pattern-chapter into the following sections:

  • Purpose: what's the idea (or ideas) behind the pattern
  • Audience: who does the pattern target
  • Examples: a couple of existing blog posts that embody the pattern
  • Characteristics: common traits found among the posts of this type
  • Dos and don'ts

  I do love typologies, and I found this breakdown very useful.

• I found part four less relevant, especially since cross-posting has been part of my workflow for ages, and I reuse writing content for conference talks. If you never considered these options, you'll benefit from these chapters.
• The only con I found is that the authors remind us that you should ask your company before you reveal trade secrets. I understand that you would like to warn people, but when it's repeated several times throughout the book, I got the feeling they're writing to dummies–not something I'm fond of.

Summary

If you're a technical writer, a Developer Advocate tasked with technical writing, or a regular developer who wants to start a blog or contribute to a company blog, I recommend getting this book. The exhaustive description of common patterns is a huge asset for beginning writers and can help even seasoned ones.

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Originally published at A Java Geek on May 25^th, 2025