RE: I have found the Holy Grail of technical writing!

[Chuck Martin <CMartin -at- serena -dot- com>]

Interesting reading, but... (and before I begin, I should note that I often
jump on new and interesting technologies to see what they can do and if they
can meet my needs, either personal or professional).

First question: The separation of functionality and content; isn't that what
XML can do?

Having taken a Java programming course, I am quite aware that anything Java
is still suspect. The promise of "write once, run anywhere" is still a pipe
dream. There are incompatibilities in many areas. In addition, with this
technology coming from Sun, it would not surprise me to find out that JSP
pages would be problematic in Microsoft's browsers.

While I haven't dug into the details, isn't saying that JSP is precompiled
misleading? If we're talking small Java programs, then yes, the Java is
compiled, but only into bytecodes. Some Java interpreted still has to start
up (typically a significant hit) and then run the Java class files. This is
probably less of an issue if we're talking about all this being done on the
server, which would likely have a Java interpreter running continuously.

Are there any tools to help create the content? Or are we talking about
complete hand coding?

I have a huge issue with a headline and text that suggests documentation
should be a "profit center." It's bad enough for companies to try and make
money off of technical support (what's the incentive, then, for improving
the product?). I think this would make many users quite unhappy. 

Just because "standard" HTML is sent to a browser doesn't mean that we
wouldn't have to worry about browser incompatibilities. Browsers and browser
versions still have significant incompatibilities in how they interpret
"standard" HTML, and even moreso when talking about HTML 4.0 standards,
including style sheets.

Just a bit of food for thought on a Monday--oops, Tuesday--morning....

--
"I don't entirely understand it but it is true: Highly skilled carpenters
don't get insulted when told they are not architects, but highly skilled
programmers do get insulted when they are told they are not UI designers."
     - anonymous programmer quoted in "GUI Bloopers"
       by Jeff Johnson

Chuck Martin, Sr. Technical Writer
cmartin -at- serena -dot- com 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Castro [mailto:thetechwriter -at- yahoo -dot- com]
> Sent: Monday, May 29, 2000 9:57 PM
> Subject: I have found the Holy Grail of technical writing!
> 
> I have found the technology that answers this question:
> 
>   How can I create documentation that is easy to maintain, 
>   that allows my users to make changes that won't be 
>   overwritten, that is customized for each individual 
>   user, that doesn't require that I create more than one 
>   version of the doc, and that doesn't require plug-ins?"
> 
> To read more about it, check out my write-up, at:
> 
>   http://davidcastro.com/JSP/JSP.htm
> 
> -David Castro
>  thetechwriter -at- yahoo -dot- com
> 

> 


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