TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
On 6/10/00 5:53 PM, Dan Emory (danemory -at- primenet -dot- com) wrote:
>XML necessarily imposes structure, and, as one of the byproducts of
>structure, metadata about data. Andrew is stuck in the past.
>He's not part of the Information Revolution he so loudly touts.
>Anyone who embraces the Information Revolution must also
>embrace imposed structure, because it is the path that will
>lead us from chaos to the promised land.
Is structured information good, useful, and joyous to behold? Sure. But
what I think I've heard Mr. Plato saying, and what I firmly believe, is
that the people who place structure *before* content are damaging the
product, the user, and the reputation of tech. writers everywhere.
I once contracted, long-term, for a very, very damaged company. The doc.
manager who came in to fix things imposed standards, structure, more
standards, processes, and rules, and did a wonderful job of which any
Tech. Writing Certification instructor would have been proud.
The only problem was that the documentation was and had always been
wrong, inadequate, and difficult to use, and nobody was addressing that.
Structure, standards, etc. did *nothing* to perform our primary purpose
(and some might argue only purpose) in writing documentation: getting
useful information into the hands of those who need it. Always put
content first.
My response to you is this: Keep your structure until I fix the other
problems. Then we can talk.