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>
> and, after all, isn't that what a good technical writer does?
> process information, make connections, and put it into a
> strucutre so that it will make sense to our readers?
>
I'm waiting (for the second day!) for the program to be torn away
from the coders' hands, so I have a little time to kill (I'll more
than make it up next week, I'm sure).
To expand on your point:
Working with Linux, I'm amazed how much of the documentation, from
man pages to supposedly new books is simply a light reworking of
what's already done. I've traced some wording through almost every
possible source, and I'm starting to think that some of it goes back
to the original UNIX man pages some time in the seventies. Stephen
Jay Gould has observed a similar sort of copying in textbooks,
noting that the ancestoral horse is still being described as being
"the size of a fox-terrier," a reference point that made good sense
when the breed was popular in the 1920s, but makes little sense
today.
Needless to say, this is poor documentation process: the mere
repetition of what a source says (whether a book or FAQ or a subject
matter expert) without any real understanding.
By contrast, I 'm amazed at how much is never processed: for
example, what are the reoccuring options for UNIX commands? What are
the common extensions? Trying to answer these questions requires
reorganization of existing material, seeing patterns and making
connections. And, of course, it's what good tech writing should be
about.
By making such connections and passing them on, writers make their
subjects easier to understand.
--
Bruce Byfield, Outlaw Communications
Contributing Editor, Maximum Linux
604.421.7189 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com
"The squire has a piece of paper that says he owns the land,
The bishop has a bible that says our souls are damned,
Mackenzie had a printing press, it's soaking in the bay,
And if Mackenzie comes again, there will be hell to pay."
-Dennis Lee, "Mackenzie"
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