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Subject:RE: end user vs end-user From:Kim Roper <kim -dot- roper -at- pixelink -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 24 Oct 2003 11:59:46 -0400
Eric Dunn wrote:
> Sure, but YOUR customers are programmers.
"Developers".
> Your customer's customers are their users.
> Can you provide an example when you'd have to refer to
> "users" and "end-users"
> in the same sentence/paragraph/chapter/manual?
I can provide an example of the term "user" being preferable to the
more-specific alternative:
An API can implement a "user-specified" feature that might be set by a
developer and rendered inaccessible to the end user in the final product.
Should it then be called a "developer-specified" feature? Not necessarily,
at least in the API documentation. The developer can also choose to allow
access to the feature in the final product.
For example: An API might allow an application to use an external,
"user-specified" lookup table. A developer can implement that function in
such a way that the lookup table is set in stone by his application (making
him the user doing the specifying), or he can write his application such
that *his* users can specify their own lookup tables.
In that case, I know that the developer is the one using the API to create
an application. I also know that the end user is the one using the
application. What I don't know is which one will take on the role of the
"user" providing the external data. In the API function description, this
meaning of the word "user" is perfectly clear to the developer.
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