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Subject:Spending time on details (was RE: FrontPage 98) From:Janet Valade <janetv -at- MAIL -dot- SYSTECH -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 19 Jun 1998 08:52:33 -0700
John Posada said:
> I've seen this happen in all walks of writer-life...
>
Not just writers. As per the saying: At some point, you have to shoot the
engineer if you ever plan to release the product.
> * A programmer spends 50% of the time making a program 5% better, yet
>
I try to remain aware that I am totally capable of spending the entire rest
of my life working on "this" manual to make it perfect. I must remain
vigilant or I will fall prey to my deep, hidden belief (which I know is not
true) that I can and should make this manual perfect. Over time, I have
developed the ability to be a pragmatic over-achiever.
Janet
----
Janet Valade,
Technical Writer, Systech Corporation, San Diego, CA mailto:janetv -at- systech -dot- com
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For every complex situation, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and
wrong.
Henry Louis Mencken
rather than having a useful program generating benefits, has the perfect
program still sitting on his HD.
* An HTML author spends 20 additional hours on a 100 hour web site just to
make sure than it is 100% HTML 4.0 compliant.
* A proposal misses deadline and is disqualified because the AccountManager
wanted to get the Exec Summary exactly right, even though everyone is
pretty sure they are the low price anyway.
My experience has been that sometimes we (and sometimes I) loose track of
the ultimate goal and make the process of getting there more important.
