Agile Documentation

Andreas Rüping is a member of the patterns think-tank, Hillside Europe, and has acted as the chairman of several EuroPLoP Conferences. He has 12 years industry experience of software development, most recently as a software engineer and consultant at sd&m software design & management AG in Germany.

• Foreword ixPreface xiAcknowledgements xviiIntroduction 1Project Background 111 Finding the Right Topics 19Target Readers 24Focused Information 26Individual Documentation Requirements 28Documentation Portfolio 30Focus on Long-Term Relevance 34Specification as a Joint Effort 36Design Rationale 39The Big Picture 40Separation of Description and Evaluation 42Realistic Examples 44Experience Reports 462 Structuring Individual Documents 61Structured information 66Judicious Diagrams 70Unambiguous Tables 73Guidelines for Readers 75Thumbnail Sketches 77Traceable References 78Glossary 79Document History 81Experience Reports 823 Layout and Typography 93Text on 50% of a Page 98Two Alphabets per Line 100120% Line Spacing 102Two Typefaces 104Careful Use of Type Variations 106Careful Ruling and Shading 108Adjacent Placement 109Coherent Pages 111Experience Reports 1124 Infrastructure and Technical Organisation 117Document Landscape 120Document Archive 123Wiki 125Code-Comment Proximity 126Reader-Friendly Media 128Separation of Contents and Layout 131Single Source and Multiple Targets 133Import by Reference 136Separation of Processing and Printing 138Document Templates 139Few Tools 142Annotated Changes 144Notification upon Update 145Reorganisation upon Request 147Experience Reports 1495 Management and Quality Assurance 159A Distinct Activity 161One Responsible Author 164Continuing Documentation 166Writing and Reflection 168Review Culture 170Review Before Delivery 174Customer Review 175A Distant View 177Information Marketplace 179Knowledge Management 180Experience Reports 182Final Remarks 193Pattern Thumbnails 197Finding the Right Topics 197Structuring Individual Documents 198Layout and Typography 200Infrastructure and Technical Organisation 201Management and Quality Assurance 203Glossary 205References 211Index 221

??many (Test Documents) would benefit from this treatment?? (Professional Tester, October 03) "...applicable to documentation for any project...highly recommended..." (CVu, Vol 16(4), August 2004)