{"id":26698,"date":"2023-01-24T12:06:34","date_gmt":"2023-01-24T19:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cloudinary.com\/blog\/?p=26698"},"modified":"2024-05-24T16:24:45","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T23:24:45","slug":"hitchkikers-guide-to-cloudinary-devx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloudinary.com\/blog\/hitchkikers-guide-to-cloudinary-devx","title":{"rendered":"Hitchhiker’s Guide to the DevX-y Docs"},"content":{"rendered":"

A guided tour of the latest developer-oriented tools & demos in Cloudinary docs <\/p>\n\n\n

So, you’re looking for the answer to everything? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I can’t guarantee that, but we think the Dev Experience upgrades we’ve made to our doc site in the last year will get you closer than ever before, at least regarding everything you need to know about Cloudinary’s vast array of automated media management, transformation, and optimization API and automation features for developers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Bit of History<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it\u2019s pretty damn complicated in the first place.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n– Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy<\/strong><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Cloudinary has always been a developer-first company, and that includes company-wide agreement that top-quality documentation for developers is a top priority. (That’s a big part of why I love my job as Director of Documentation \ud83d\ude0a). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, we’ve gotten lots of feedback that we have very thorough docs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But… we also heard that it was rather complicated for developers to get started or find the exact answers they need among it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So besides making sure all our new features continued to be thoroughly documented as each one was released, our awesome developer doc team dedicated much of this past year towards adding content, code explorers, demos, tutorials, and other doc site features that we hope will maximize your experience (and minimize wasted time) on our site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As 2023 opens, I thought it might be a nice opportunity to give you all a little tour of what we’ve been working on to make our developers’ lives a little easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let the tour begin<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\u2026when you know\u2026however hard you stare at any given paragraph \u2026 you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new .. technique it describes<\/em>.<\/smaller><\/p>\n– Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy<\/strong><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There’s no way to write docs without words, but we know that if any developer has a chance to learn something new without actually having to read, s\/he’ll be that much happier and that much more likely to try out all the ‘revolutionary new’ stuff that’s available. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are a few things we did toward that no-read getting started ideal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SDK Quick Starts<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

One of our proud moments in the past year was the launch of our SDK quick starts. We aimed to provide step-by-step copy-pastable code snippets that enable you to get the SDK for your favorite language\/framework up and running in less than 5 minutes<\/em>. That includes  installing, configuring, and then implementing upload, asset management, and transformation code. Yep! All that in just 5 minutes! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A peek at one of the SDK quick starts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Before publishing them, we had our devrel and support engineers test our Quick Starts for clarity and to make sure we hit that max five minute target. After they went live, it couldn’t be more rewarding to see James Quick<\/a> using our Python Quick Start in one of his YouTube demos as a fast way to start writing his code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can grab the links to the Quick Starts for your favorite language from our SDK landing page<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demos & Code Explorers<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

We know it’s easiest to get started with new features if you’ve got the code at your fingertips. That’s why we’re always looking for opportunities to create new feature demos and code explorers to help you get going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the many code explorer\/sandboxes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here are a few of our latest examples:<\/p>\n\n\n\n