Java/C++ API Technical Writer, Java/Perl Programmer
San Jose, California
Writing since 1987, programming in Java since 1997
Services Offered
| Writer | Produce software documentation—user's guides, reference manuals, tutorials, courseware, and API reference and usage. |
| Advisor | Help your team plan wisely for an API documentation project. |
| Programmer | Help automate doc build tasks. Assist in the development of Java apps or Perl/CGI scripts. |
| Trainer | Teach your employees how to program in Java and Perl, how to document Java and C++ API, and how to plan for and use javadoc effectively. |
Employment History
[ details of experience ]
| eBay | Senior technical writer and technologistWeb Services, XML, WSDL, SOAP, Java, Perl, .NET API Developers Platform. Creating and revising my share of API docs on the team's every-two-weeks release schedule. Primary architect of the Java and Perl software used by the doc team to generate the central call-based web services documentation from custom appinfo in eBay's schema. See apireferencedocs.codebase.ebay.com. | 2/05-present |
| eBay | Contract technical writer—XML API Developers Platform. Updated my share of API docs on the team's every-two-weeks release schedule. Contract extended twice. | 7/04-02/05 |
| Informatica | Contract technologist—C++ product. Reverted existing API documentation back into source code. Enabled doxygen/javadoc via build process. Completed basic API documentation for 1000+ functions. | 3/04-6/04 |
| Veritas | Contract technical writer—beta product. Converted engineering papers to formal documentation. | 12/03-1/04 |
| Savi | Contract advisor—API documentation project and future training. | 6/03 |
| Savi | Contract technical writer—API documentation for a large Java package. | 10/01-12/01 |
| Phoons.com | Java/Perl programmer—multi-language web site. Developed the entire internationalized software solution for generating its tens of thousands of highly-linked web pages. Promoted "phooning" successfully (see that in Google). | 5/99-present |
| (many companies) | Author/instructor—courses in Documenting Java and C++ API, Java Programming and javadoc. See http://www.phoons.com/john/classes/coursesTaught.html | 1/98-present |
| Sun Microsystems | Sole (contract) technical writer—load testing application written in Java. Delivered installation guide, user's guide, API reference and usage, and tutorial. / Programmer. Assisted developers. / Technologist. Repaired and improved scripts for generating ps/pdf/html directly from FrameMaker source files. | 9/97-10/99 |
| Oracle | Team lead, technical writer—electronic commerce application written in Java. Delivered administrator's and user's guides, and API reference. Wrote software to generate FrameMaker API documentation directly from object model description text. Wrote scripts to generate ps/pdf/html directly from FrameMaker source files. | 7/96-8/97 |
| IBM | Engineering trainer, internal customer support—3D CAD software and Unix. Developed corporate training material. Wrote software to convert SGML training documentation into HTML (early web days). | 8/88-1/96 |
| IBM | Process and tooling engineer—hard drive manufacturing. Overhauled graphics and text in process documentation. | 4/85-8/88 |
Education
| Self-taught Java 2/AWT Frame macros WebWorks javadoc UNIX, CGI scripts Flash Photoshop Illustrator | 1996+ |
| UCSC Extension
Certificate in C++/OO-Programming (1996)
Perl/CGI
Java Servlets
EJB with WebLogic J2ME/Wireless JavaBeans Macromedia Director/Lingo |
1996+ |
| De Anza College Certificate in Technical Writing | 1991 |
| Cal Poly San Luis Obispo BS Mechanical Engineering | 1985 |
Application and Language Experience
| Documentation | HTML/CSS FrameMaker WebWorks RoboHelp | Programming | Java 2/Swing Perl/CGI UNIX scripts |
| Platforms | Unix Windows Mac | Multimedia | PhotoImpact Photoshop Illustrator |