Re: creativity . . . and ethics

[Faith Weber <weber -at- EASI -dot- ENET -dot- DEC -dot- COM>]

Well, I guess I fall somewhere in the middle. I do avoid trying
to make the unreasonable sound wonderful -- in those cases, which
fortunately are fairly rare, I will first point out what I think
is unreasonable and make suggestions about how it could be improved.
If we have the time and/or resources, we usually discuss that and
come to some kind of agreement. If the "unreasonable" way is the
only possible way to do it, or we can't change it in the near future,
I just document the facts, without trying to make them sound good
or bad.

I try to point out the features of our software that really *are*
wonderful, because the users may not have the background to realize
the software is wonderful unless we tell them. I also warn them
about ways they can get themselves into trouble, and explain how
they can avoid that.

I guess the point is, I want to give users the information they
need to effectively use our software, and wherever I can
legitimately give them reasons to *like* using it, I do that too.
Part of my job is to help sell our product by emphasizing the good
points of our software, while steering users away from any problems
they might encounter. I don't feel a need to be dishonest or compromise
my ethics to achieve that, though. Luckily, our management
encourages us to point out problem areas in the software and make
suggestions for improvement, so I am spending more and more time
emphasizing the good points, and less documenting "unreasonable"
software behavior!

Faith Weber
weber -at- easi -dot- enet -dot- dec -dot- com