Skip to Content
Writing for Developers
audiobook

Writing for Developers

by Piotr Sarna, Cynthia Dunlop
January 2025
Beginner to intermediate
13h 9m
English
Manning Publications

Overview

Pragmatic methods for writing blogs, articles, and other technical pieces that stand out from the crowd!

Do you want to connect with your community, share your state-of-the-art achievements, and help your peers benefit from your hard-fought lessons learned? Do you want to get the kind of attention that expands your career? Master the art of writing engineering blog posts and articles! This comprehensive guide shows you how to create content your fellow developers will love to read and share.

Writing for Developers is full of the practical tips, tricks, and techniques you need to translate the ideas floating around your head into content that’s clear and compelling, including how to:

  • Pinpoint topics that make intriguing posts
  • Apply popular blog post design patterns
  • Rapidly plan, draft, and optimize blog posts
  • Make your content clearer and more convincing to technical readers
  • Tap AI for revision while avoiding misuses and abuses
  • Increase the impact of all your technical communications

Whether you’re brand new to writing, or a seasoned hand who wants more attention for your work, Writing for Developers will help ensure your writing resonates with readers. This isn’t a generic writing guide—from start to finish, the book is laser-focused on technical topics, writers, and audiences. Authors Piotr Sarna and Cynthia Dunlop combine their differing perspectives as an engineer and professional writer to help you write compelling works. You’ll learn through detailed examples, methodical strategies, and a “punk rock DIY attitude!”

About the Technology
A well-crafted technical article can spark a new idea, demystify a technology, expand your perspective, or save you from going down a disastrous path. Even if you don’t consider yourself a “good writer,” you can make a difference by sharing insights and advancing the community. This practical guide shows you how to create blogs, articles, and other content your fellow developers will want to read and share.

About the Book
Writing for Developers introduces seven popular patterns for modern engineering blogs—such as “The Bug Hunt,” “We Rewrote It in X,” and “How We Built It”—and helps you match these patterns with your ideas. This book covers the entire writing process, from brainstorming, planning, and revising, to promoting your blog in ways that build reputation and generate further opportunities.

What's Inside
  • Rapidly plan, draft, and review your content
  • Build on popular blog post design patterns
  • Support your writing with AI
  • Increase the impact of all your communications


About the Reader
For developers and engineers of all ability levels—even if you’re not a native English speaker and never took a writing class in your life.

About the Authors
Piotr Sarna is a software engineer and an experienced book and blog author. Cynthia Dunlop has been writing for and with developers for 20+ years.

Quotes
Loaded with specific examples of writing in the wild that can serve as object lessons.
- From the Foreword by Bryan Cantrill

Demystifies the technical writing process and helps make you a better writer.
- Alex Gallego, Redpanda

Full of simple, practical guidance for improving your craft and increasing your impact. I will be recommending it far and wide.
- Charity Majors, Honeycomb

Offers lots of actionable tips, even for those who have been writing for years. Plus, it’s a seriously fun read.
- Glauber Costa, Turso

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Listen now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Writing for Developers

Writing for Developers

Piotr Sarna, Cynthia Dunlop
Design It!

Design It!

Michael Keeling
INSPIRED

INSPIRED

Marty Cagan

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781633436282AUPublisher SupportOtherPublisher WebsitePurchase Link