From OpenJS World 2022: The Human API: Building Your Project’s Second Source of Truth – Rachel Nabors, Principal Program Manager, Developer Education, Amazon AWS Amplify

In the fourth post of our OpenJS World Keynote Series, we’re highlighting a keynote on The Human API. To view all of the keynotes from the conference, please visit the OpenJS YouTube Channel.

The only thing harder than writing scalable, usable code is teaching others how to wield it. As the sum of human knowledge continues to grow, so do the challenges of teaching each other what we need to know. Not only to build toward the future but also to contribute to the tools of its construction. If only it were possible to transfer knowledge from one engineer directly into the minds of other engineers, like a human RAID! 

Rachel Lee Nabors, Principal Program Manager, Developer Education at Amazon AWS Amplify, loves building such mechanisms for knowledge transfer, from video guides to documentation to curricula. In this talk, they discussed what doesn’t work, what has worked on projects like React and React Native, and what can work for any other open source project today. Teaching is hard. But there are solid ways to approach knowledge transfer at scale.

Full keynote available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWocgghZPOA 

Main Sections

0:00 Introduction
2:00 Once upon a time…
3:52 How do you transfer knowledge between humans?
5:05 Knowledge transfer starts with you
8:51 Set up a site
10:55 Mentor new core members
12:22 Engage your community to expand your content
15:01 Teach more effectively through repetition and interaction 
16:30 Make your documentation scale 
18:09 Your docs are your second source of truth 
20:19 Docs are not a sprint
22:35 Happily ever after… 

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