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Subject:Re: Documenting software From:Janice Gelb <janiceg -at- MARVIN -dot- ENG -dot- SUN -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 30 Jun 1998 12:58:21 -0700
Kathy Stanzler wrote:
>
> For those of you who document software applications, how much of what
> you do is documenting the GUI and how much of it is documenting the
> underlying structure, the means by which the GUI is implemented? In
> other words, how important is it, do you think, for tech writers to
> understand the inner workings of the software?
>
What you're documenting, I think, should be what the user needs to know
to use the software to get something done. Most of the time, that just
means the GUI, not the underlying software. As I told one of my writers
once when an engineer was bugging him to include more of the underlying
technology, the name of the book is "Using XProduct" not "Everything
You Always Wanted to Know About XProduct But Were Afraid to Ask."
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Janice Gelb | The only connection Sun has with this
janice -dot- gelb -at- eng -dot- sun -dot- com | message is the return address. http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8018/index.html
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