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I hope that someone has defined the goals of the API documentation. API docs beyond the reference level may truly be intended to help new developers, or they may be primarily a marketing tool to establish credibility. Often, experienced developers just look at the examples. So make sure to include interesting and useful examples in the API docs.
If your developers haven't used one of the automated API creation tools, you will have to do a lot of spadework getting basic information out of them. My best investment was a box of random treasures from Archie McPhee. Developers who claimed to be too busy to blow their own noses would talk to me for the chance to pick an irony-laden geek toy from my box of plastic stuff. It helps, of course, to bother them as little as possible and to ask the smartest questions you can.
Writing API dos and doing an SDK was one of the most fun and most frustrating tasks I've taken on in my entire career.
- Jessica
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