Hacker News with Generative AI: Technical Writing

Embeddings are underrated (technicalwriting.dev)
Machine learning (ML) has the potential to advance the state of the art in technical writing. No, I’m not talking about text generation models like Claude, Gemini, LLaMa, GPT, etc. The ML technology that might end up having the biggest impact on technical writing is embeddings.

Machine Learning, Technical Writing, Embeddings

367 points by misonic 20 days ago | 176 comments

What docs-as-code means (passo.uno)
I’ve recently started a new job as a documentation engineer. While my work is largely the same as that of a technical writer, the sound and semantics of my new job title gave me some pause and made me think about what it really means to be doing docs-as-code. To say that it’s about writing documentation using the same tools and methods as software developers is correct, but fails to acknowledge the full consequences of the fact.

Software Development, Documentation, Technical Writing, Workflow

102 points by remoquete 32 days ago | 113 comments

Focus on decisions, not tasks (technicalwriting.dev)
In technical communication, we don’t talk much about decision support; we talk about task support… In many cases, the information people need to complete their tasks is not information on how to operate machines, but information to support their decision making… simply documenting the procedures is never enough… What I am talking about is documenting the context, letting users know what decisions they must make, making them aware of the consequences, and, as far as possible, leading them to resources

Technical Writing, Decision Making, User Experience

298 points by kaycebasques 34 days ago | 61 comments

I Landed 4 Jobs and Earned $25K+ with Technical Writing (catalins.tech)
As a final-year university student preparing to enter the industry, I knew I had to differentiate myself from other candidates in a competitive job market. That's when the idea struck me: what if I combined two activities I enjoy, programming and writing?

Technical Writing, Career Advice, Job Hunting, Programming

20 points by caminmccluskey 42 days ago | 2 comments

LaTeX Style Guide for EE 364B [pdf] (2014) (web.stanford.edu)

LaTeX, Technical Writing, Stanford University, EE 364B, Course Materials

120 points by walterbell 46 days ago | 31 comments

Technical writing is too important to leave to language models (counting-stuff.com)
There are no shortcuts to writing something worth reading

Technical Writing, Language Models, Artificial Intelligence

16 points by articsputnik 61 days ago | 0 comments

Ask HN: Technical Writing Resources (ycombinator.com)

Technical Writing, Resources, Writing, Ask HN

11 points by stevenking86 93 days ago | 5 comments

There is no mystery over who wrote the Blue Screen of Death (microsoft.com)