RE: release notes question

["Kim McGarghan" <kmcgarghan -at- nssolutions -dot- com>]

Joan,

I hope this helps.

I'm the lone writer; I work for a small (but rapidly growing!) startup
company.

I write the release notes based on code changes the developers have made.
In addition to being on their mailing lists, which include check-ins of
changes, they send me a summary of items they have changed.  I run
comparison programs between the old and new versions of some of the files.
I also play with the daily builds as they come along so I can see changes
(my product runs on two operating systems and across three interfaces).  I
then hack together a preliminary version which the developers check.  I edit
according to their additional input and then we post.

I hope to set up decent systems, but for now this is how we're taming this
particular lion.


"If you care enough, you can have an impact."  Harry Chapin

Kim McGarghan
Senior Technical Writer
Network Storage Solutions, Inc.
14020 Thunderbolt Place, Suite 500
Chantilly, VA  20151
(703) 834-2234 (work)
(703) 834-2221 (fax)
mailto:kmcgarghan -at- nssolutions -dot- com
http://www.nssolutions.com




-----Original Message-----
From: Joan_Smith -at- ultimatesoftware -dot- com
[mailto:Joan_Smith -at- ultimatesoftware -dot- com]
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2001 2:42 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: release notes question


Hi everyone, I'm a former techwr-l'r from years past and have come back
with a problem I hope you can help me with.

I've been the "Release Note Coordinator" for a few years at my company. At
times, our team of writers have simply
felt like Release Note Writers, because they take precedence over just
about any kind of documentation. We are lucky enough
to have a decent tracking system, using Lotus Notes, where an issue gets
reported and eventually resolved for a particular release,
and the product analyst decides what needs a Note, and what doesn't.

For those of you who work for a company that creates release notes:

* Who writes them, the documention writers or the
engineers/programmers/QA/whomever?
* How does your company decide what type of information needs a note or how
can you get
your company to lighten up on the RN load? (we have had releases where we
honestly have over
150 release notes written for different parts of the product). We tend to
get very specific, yet we are not
allowed to use certain words like "fixed" or "bug", believe it or not, due
to Marketing constrictions!

Thanks everyone,

Joan
joan_smith -at- usgroup -dot- com

****************************
Joan M. Smith
Senior Technical Writer
Ultimate Software Group
(954) 331-7404


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