Re: Good/bad docs

["House, Barry" <BHouse -at- LRS -dot- COM>]

The sorry state of documentation in commercial software was also the
subject of an article by Adam C. Engst in his TidBITS newsletter. The
piece is Macintosh-focused (as is TidBITS), but the points Engst makes
are good for all of us to ponder.

http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-428.html#lnk3


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hutchings, Christa [SMTP:cwhutchings -at- HOMEWIRELESS -dot- COM]
> Sent: Friday, August 07, 1998 8:56 AM
> To:   TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject:      Good/bad docs
>
> Wow - has anyone read the "What's Up, Docs?" article in the Aug. '98
> Windows Magazine?
>
> Written by Fred Langa, the article is subtitled, "Is it me, or has the
> quality of documentation taken a dive?".
>
> In the article, Langa discusses the poor documentation that
> accompanied
> a new CD writer he purchased. He mentions how skimpy the documentation
> was (half of a 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper) for a fairly complicated SW
> module that accompanied the CD writer and wonders why the vendor (a
> very
> well-known name in the PC peripherals world) didn't include more
> detailed docs. He understands the desire to keep printing costs down,
> but doesn't understand why more complete documentation wasn't included
> on the CD containing the SW module (especially since the SW took up
> only
> 1% of the CD).
>
> To see the article, point your browser to
> http://www.techweb.com/se/directlink.cgi?WIN19980801S0007
>
> Langa also mentions that he asked visitors to the Windows magazine
> discussion area for comments regarding documentation. He printed some
> of
> the responses in the magazine article. You can view the comments at
> http://www.winmag.com/bbs/columns/archives/042698/monday/index.htm.
>
> Food for thought, folks...
>
>
> Chris Welch-Hutchings
> Senior Technical Writer
> Home Wireless Networks, Inc.
> mailto:cwhutchings -at- homewireless -dot- com
>
>
>


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