How much developer content do you need?

Do you ever awaken with a start, a question at the forefront of your mind, giving you anxiety?

You’d think it might be any of the stressful things in the world that keep me awake. Instead, this recent issue was about the International Space Station.

It’s admittedly a little weird, but my anxiety-inducing question was this: how do people on the ISS know they’ll have enough air?

Does a space freighter deliver new tanks on a regular basis? Does every space traveler just grab a couple canisters before heading to the launching pad?

Before I get you worked up with concern, the answer is they make their own oxygen. They use solar energy to run electricity through water to separate the H from the Os. They get new water by recycling sweat, vapor, and other waste to keep the whole thing going.

Aren’t you relieved?!

Recently, a few clients came to me separately with their own conundrums. Each was wondering how to estimate developer content needs. And it was clearly waking them up at night.

Your needs are obviously dependent upon your situation. However, here’s a quick way to take stock:

1. Identify your top use cases
2. Determine what languages to target
3. Create a matrix of #1 and #2

Let’s say you have 3-5 core use cases and support (or aspire to support) 2-6 programming languages. Your minimum content needs are a piece that addresses these 6-30 pairings of language and use case.

Eventually you’ll have more for each of these—especially the ones that get the most traction with customers. However, this calculation gives you somewhere to start. You can look across your existing documentation and take stock of various GitHub repos. See how much you already have and determine what you need.

For those just starting out, don’t try to tackle it all at once. I recommend starting with full coverage of a single language or use case. For example, you might provide a Python example for every use case. Or, take your primary use case and put it in language-specific contexts.

These combinations of use case and language become the seeds for future content. Much like air on the International Space Station, you’ll create a cycle that keeps things moving—and hopefully makes you sleep a little better.