Documentation Style Guide

Style Guide

We adhere to the Google developer documentation style guide. Here are some links to particularly important resources from that style guide:

• Word list – an alphabetically ordered list that allows you to quickly find words to use, or not to use, and recommendations of words and terms to use.

• Accessibility – write inclusive documentation for a global audience.

• Timeless documentation – avoid words and terms like currently, existing, in the future, now, or soon.

• Capitalization – when to use the Shift key, and how to format headings and titles. We use upper case for headings, which is about the only deviation from the Google style guide.

• Abbreviations – how to use acronyms and initialisms.

• Punctuation – how to properly use colons, commas, dashes, etc.

• Formatting and organization – how to write dates and times, headings and titles, when to use lists or rather tables.

• Cross-references – how to properly write links.

• Code samples – how to write and format code blocks.

• Example domain names, IP numbers, and person names – and how to use filenames and trademarks.

Additional Information

Version-specific information: We refer to software versions (like "MariaDB 10.6") only for products (like MariaDB Server or MaxScale) or features (like replication or authentication) that follow the N-1 rule, where N is the last version still under maintenance. (At the time of writing, that's MariaDB 10.6 for the Server.) In other words, we'd mention MariaDB 10.5, but not versions older than that. This is the principle, from which we will deviate if there's a valid reason to do so.