My learning journey (so far)

So far, this blog has been a bit sporadic. I realise that I haven’t spent any time explaining my learning journey up to this point.

I’ve been a follower of Tom Johnson’s I’d Rather Be Writing blog for several years. Some time in 2019 I started thinking more about his specialty (API docs). Indeed, he was writing more and more about documenting APIs and even had developed a course to teach other tech writers the basics of documenting REST APIs.

I have since done Tom’s course twice, and dip back into it frequently. And although it doesn’t cover everything (and in parts it can be a little disjointed) it’s basically the only comprehensive self-paced course out there.

I have also completed the following Peter Gruenbaum courses on Udemy:

• Coding for Writers: Basic Programming
• Git and GitHub for Writers
• Learn Swagger and the OpenAPI Specification
• Learn API Technical Writing: JSON and XML for Writers
• Learn API Technical Writing: REST for Writers
• The Art of API Documentation

Peter’s videos provide a good foundation (I would start with those then do Tom’s course), but at the time of writing this post most of them are circa 2017 and refer to the OpenAPI Spec v2.0 not 3.0+.

I have also consumed many, many articles, blog posts, opinion pieces and other online resources.

Although free of charge, I’ve donated $100 USD to Tom to show my support for him and this amazing resource. Udemy courses are usually heavily reduced (check to see if your company has an account).

At the moment, I would say that I have about 60% of the knowledge I need. It’s a steep learning curve, no joke. But I feel that with more practise working with raw requirements and transforming them into tight, meaningful docs, I will get there. In my post Learning API docs by stealth I discuss such a learning opportunity.

In a future post I’ll talk more about where to start and how to eke out opportunities for actual hands-on practise.