TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: Defense Manual Guides...? From:Beverly Parks <bparks -at- HUACHUCA-EMH1 -dot- ARMY -dot- MIL> Date:Tue, 10 Jan 1995 12:28:15 MST
The current guide is something called MIL-STD-498(DRAFT),
"Military Standard for Software Development and Documentation".
This is dated 27 May 1994.
MIL-STD-498 merges two documents: DOD-STD-2167A, "Defense System
Software Development"; and DOD-STD-7935A, "DOD Automated
Information Systems Documentation Standards". One of these
two documents is probably what you used.
Military standards have something called Data Item Descriptions
(DID) associated with them, usually supplied as appendices. The
DID in MIL-STD-498 that defines software user manuals is called,
surprise, Software User Manual DID. DIDs describe the format,
purpose, and content of the document they pertain to. They are
very boring and totally lack any innovative design.
Some projects get waivers from following the standard, or at
least from following specific DIDs in the standard. So if none
of these terms sound familiar to you, you probably had a waiver
(in which case I have no idea what you were using.)
Hope this helps.
Beverly Parks
bparks -at- huachuca-emh1 -dot- army -dot- mil
