Monday, October 25, 2004
Tech books for tech writers
Technical writing is just about writing. There are also a number of technical skills involved. For those of us who don't have the time or budget to take courses, here are some useful technical books to help you acquire and build on those skills.
Feel free to add your ideas to the comments at the end of this post.
Adobe FrameMaker Classroom in a Book -- a solid beginner's guide to FrameMaker. I've heard, though, that the edition of this book for FrameMaker 7.0 is a real dud.
FrameMaker Visual QuickStart Guide -- a better reference than a book for learning FrameMaker.
Learning GNU Emacs and Learning the vi Editor -- because you never know when you'll have to work with text on a UNIX box. Which brings us to:
UNIX: Visual QuickStart Guide and UNIX Advanced: Visual QuickPro Guide -- two very good guides to UNIX. Another useful UNIX book to have lying around is UNIX in a Nutshell.
DocBook Publishing -- not the book it could have been, but it does give a useful introduction to DocBook. My only complaints are that it focuses too heavily on the SGML version of DocBook and too much time is spent discussing the tools.
DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide -- if you're using DocBook and need to fiddle with the XSL stylesheets, then this is the only book you'll ever need for reference.
Teach Yourself Shell Programming in 24 Hours -- if you're working in UNIX, then you'll quickly find that shell scripts can save you a lot of time and hassle.
The Book of JavaScript -- everything you need to know to make your online documentation more interactive and cutting edge.
SQL in a Nutshell -- makes documenting databases and database functions a lot easier.
Learning XML and XML in a Nutshell -- the first is an excellent book for learning the basics of XML, and the second is one of the best XML references around.
Feel free to add your ideas to the comments at the end of this post.
Adobe FrameMaker Classroom in a Book -- a solid beginner's guide to FrameMaker. I've heard, though, that the edition of this book for FrameMaker 7.0 is a real dud.
FrameMaker Visual QuickStart Guide -- a better reference than a book for learning FrameMaker.
Learning GNU Emacs and Learning the vi Editor -- because you never know when you'll have to work with text on a UNIX box. Which brings us to:
UNIX: Visual QuickStart Guide and UNIX Advanced: Visual QuickPro Guide -- two very good guides to UNIX. Another useful UNIX book to have lying around is UNIX in a Nutshell.
DocBook Publishing -- not the book it could have been, but it does give a useful introduction to DocBook. My only complaints are that it focuses too heavily on the SGML version of DocBook and too much time is spent discussing the tools.
DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide -- if you're using DocBook and need to fiddle with the XSL stylesheets, then this is the only book you'll ever need for reference.
Teach Yourself Shell Programming in 24 Hours -- if you're working in UNIX, then you'll quickly find that shell scripts can save you a lot of time and hassle.
The Book of JavaScript -- everything you need to know to make your online documentation more interactive and cutting edge.
SQL in a Nutshell -- makes documenting databases and database functions a lot easier.
Learning XML and XML in a Nutshell -- the first is an excellent book for learning the basics of XML, and the second is one of the best XML references around.
