Re: Can't do without paper?

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

>Lo and behold as the deadline approached, the manager decided that paper
>documentation looked pretty good after all. My department had to drop
>everything to ride to the rescue.

>** Over here we had the same experience for a different reason.  Our managers
>   returned from a visit to the USA and reported that the market will not
>   pay thousands of dollars for a product that doesn't include complete
>   documentation on paper.  Are they right?


In my experience, yes, though I don't know if I'd include the
qualifier "complete"! I hate to say this but I'd change that to
"...that doesn't include *impressive-looking* documentation on
paper." I asked an ex-client working with me whether he thought
it would be OK to send out 10 pages of release notes stapled,
rather than wire-o binding them with our standard covers. (The
content would be the same.)

He said "Gee, I don't know. They are paying *a lot of money* for
the software!" I have heard this sentiment from enough people
to convince me that folks want to *see* a nice-looking document
for their money. Whether or not they use it is another thing . . .
though I think they are more inclined to use it if it looks
nice (what do dating, job interviews, and documentation have
in common?).

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