Re: where do docs fit in the development process?
At 9:37 AM -0800 1/28/02, Andrew Plato wrote:
This is why you need to understand the product and technology inside andThis is not a reasonable assumption. No it is an assumption, according to the cliche. It makes an Ass out of you and me.
out. You should be working AHEAD of the engineers. Documenting stuff
before they even coded it. Its not insane if you understand what they are
doing and you have an established relationship with the engineers.
If you document ahead of the engineers, and with as little design documentation as Susie has stated, then you will be on the wrong track a good portion of the time.
While Andrew may be indulging in a bit of hyperbole (who'd have thought it? ;-) ), what he says isn't necessarily impossible, or inefficient, either. If you have started to document some of the functions in a program, you can often make a good guess about how an unfinished function will work. Often, the interface alone will let you guess. If you sit in on development meetings, or have access to a programmer's notes, you can make an even better guess.
Moreover, your guesses may be part of the development. A couple of times, I've roughed in sections before the function was ready,and the programmers have responded by using it as a guide as to how the function should work or the interface should appear.
--
Bruce Byfield 604.421.7177 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com
"It is our will That thus enchains us to permitted ill.
We might be otherwise, we might be all
We dream of happy, high, majestical."
- Percy Shelley, "Julian and Maddalo"
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References:
RE: where do docs fit in the development process?: From: Andrew Plato
RE: where do docs fit in the development process?: From: quills
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