Understanding and Documenting Complex Software

Training videos and workbooks for technical writers in the hi-tech industry.
Our DVDs and workbooks cover topics such as how to document APIs
and SDKs, learning to read Java and C++ source code, technical writing for
beginners, understanding complex software and writing marketing materials.

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Understanding Complex Software: workbook

If you're a technical writer, trainer or marketing person, can you hold up your end of a conversation at work?

If you're working on a complex software project, you need to understand what's going on below the user interface.

And there's a lot going on down there.

$49.95 + $9 s&h

Scratch below the surface of any big system and you quickly find clients and servers, controls and widgets, middleware and middle-tiers and n-tiers, classes and objects and instances, methods, properties, functions and procedures, COM and CORBA and ActiveX, Web services and application services, and yes, even daemons!

Do you understand all this? Or do you need a good workbook to help you get a handle on what the developers and engineers are talking about?

What This Workbook Covers

The visible components of software

Programmer interfaces (APIs)

User interfaces

Metafiles

File layouts

Protocols

The (usually) invisible components of software

Functions and procedures
Classes and objects
Methods and properties

The code stored on a PC

Executables
DLLs
The relationship between APIs and DLLs

Running code

Processes
Threads
Services
Daemons

The layers (software components) of a system

Front ends and back ends
Clients and servers
N-tiers and middle-tiers

Beyond the PC

Mainframes
UNIX and Linux
NT
PDAs and wireless devices

Connecting all the layers

Communication protocols
Middleware
Terminal emulators

Designing layers to be easy to connect

COM and DCOM
ActiveX
CORBA

Connecting the entire universe with Web services

.NET
J2EE
XML
SOAP

Modeling complex software with old-style diagrams

Data flow diagrams
Entity-relationship diagrams
State-transition diagrams
Structure diagrams

Modeling complex software with object-oriented diagrams

UML
Object-relationship diagrams
Use case diagrams

This workbook includes all the materials distributed at our 1-day workshop, including:

115 PowerPoint slides
detailed exercises
12-page glossary of programming terms
10-page bibliography of books related to technical communications

And remember, there's no risk: if you're not satisfied, you can return any workbook you order for a complete refund of the purchase price.

Future release: DVD of this workshop

In the not-too-distant future we plan to release a DVD of the "Understanding Complex Software" workshop. If you would like to be notified when the DVD is released, please click here to send us an email. We will never sell or give your email address to any other company.