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Re: Writing software requirements; document change control
Subject:Re: Writing software requirements; document change control From:Chuck Banks <chuck -at- ASL -dot- DL -dot- NEC -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 18 May 1994 11:16:59 CDT
For Peggy Thompson, et al:
Most of the formats I've used were developed internally by my
employers long before I hired on. However, a number of years ago, I
attended a seminar by TCA (Technical Communications Associates, Inc.)
entitled _Documenting_a_Computer_System._
TCA advocated a forms-based system of generating specifications,
reports, design criteria, etc. The TCA method is structured with each
step drawing upon or including preceeding forms in that step's deliverables.
You might try to contact TCA at the following address:
Technical Communications Associates, Inc.
1250 Oakmead Parkway, Suite 210
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
If that fails, let me know, I can mail you a copy of their
old design materials.
As for Configuration Management, we use CaseWare (R) from
CaseWare, Inc. Currently, our design documents are under that
system, but not our user documents. We still use manual methods
to control versions of our user documents as some are on a Xerox
platform (ViewPoint) and others are on a UNIX platform (FrameMaker).
We have a number of people who track document versions and maintain
our technical library and backup tapes. All part of our version
control and disaster recovery plans.
CaseWare is something of a resource hog. However, it offers
you the option of saving successive versions of a document as either
seperate, complete document files or as a base file with succeeding
change files. You also have "work" areas where version control is
"turned off" so you can prepare first drafts of small documents.
I hope you find this valuable.
Best Regards!
Chuck Banks
--
__ ________ ______
|\\ | || // Chuck Banks
| \\ | ||_______ || Senior Technical Writer
| \\ | || || NEC America, Inc.
| \\| \\______ \\______ E-Mail: chuck -at- asl -dot- dl -dot- nec -dot- com
America, Incorporated CompuServe: 72520,411
STC Mail: cbanks -at- talkdallas -dot- com
