[205guy]

Those are the trees I was talking about. Actually, 1) is subsumed by “what the reader wants to do,” and 2) is unknowable and you’ll write a hard-to-use doc covering all the cases (kinda like the original submission).

In my experience, all software has a purpose. For example, an API is for writing an app that gets and processes info from the server. That’s the big picture. The audience is someone writing that app. If they can’t write apps, it’s not the job of your doc to teach them. Aim the doc at the competent app-writer, give them useful info, and don’t add any fluff. In fact, if you provide a good API doc, it will teach beginners through good form and good examples.