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Subject:Re: how to get APIs into your portfolio? From:"Kevin Cheek" <CHEEK1 -at- sbcglobal -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 28 Oct 2002 13:57:08 -0500
> <...>
> My question to
> you all is, do you have any strategies or
> suggestions for how to go about creating
> an API-type writing sample that shows
> that I can do that type of writing?
A couple of thoughts:
1. For future reference (when you have an API Doc on
hand): Given the speed with which versions of APIs
become, obsolete, supplanted, replaced by newer
version, etc, one thing that has always worked for me
is to ask my manager and/or the project manager for
permission to use the one-back-from-current version as
a writing sample. This is usually something that has
been released and is available to the market at large.
With one very minor exception, this has always worked
for me.
2. For your current situation, where you have no API
doc on hand: a. Do you have any old draft files on
hand that you could edit and pretty up? If not, how
about taking a bit of example code and mocking up
about three to six pages of Programmers guide for
that. For example, you could take the sample
application in the free Java tutorial from
java.sun.com and write a quick programmer's guide for
that. Explain full well what you have done in the
interview, and that in no way is this official
documentation, merely a sample of what you can do.
I find that when people ask for API experience, what
they really want is proof that you can write a
programmer's guide that relies on sample code.
That's just off the top of my head, along with a few
gray hairs.
> I welcome all opinions!
That's dangerous around here!
Best of luck!
-Kevin
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