One of the sites that I frequent, the WordPress.com Developer Site, has been relaunched. The main purpose of the relaunch is the improve the overall usability for us developers. I think they’ve done a pretty good job of it and I tried 5 initial searches to test and I’m impressed. I did find the information that I was looking for more easily thanks to the improved user interface. This goes to show that you can house complex information all on the one site but with an easy to navigate architecture.
Just visiting the Documentation page shows a clear and concise structure. API is what we and many other WordPress developers mostly use the site for and it’s probably the most complex but here if is at the top of the topic browsing section. Easy to find right? I think so. Browse down the right-hand vertical menu and you’ll find the Ecosystem. Whilst I’d advise any developer to read up on how a given development platform all fits together in terms of the wider context, I realise that new developers to a platform do have a very particular and, often, time critical problem to solve. In these cases they’ll often skip straight to the API and get the job done. However, reading around your subject is often the best way forward long term.