Re: Peter Taylor's thread:

["Huber, Mike" <mrhuber -at- SOFTWARE -dot- ROCKWELL -dot- COM>]

*> >Peter wrote:
> >
> >"What would you do if it it was 3:00, you had a deadline at 3:30, and
> >you had just added some new functions to the reference
> section and you
> >couldn't verify their accuracy because the developer responsible had
> >gone home. What would you do within that half hour to ensure the the
> >document was accurate?"

Well. the programmer part of the job title changes things a bit - makes
access to the code a reasonable assumption. Unless you are intimately
familiar with the source code involved, you aren't going to get far in half
an hour. But if I am a programmer/writer (a job for which I am qualified in
C, Visual Basic, and xx86 assemblers, by the way) I probably know my way
around the code already, and I can verify the function myself.

Otherwise, my first answer: ask the QA/testing person. Unless we are talking
about a document with a long lead time, there better not be a function that
doesn't even have a test plan half an hour before deadline. The test people
have to know how it's supposed to work, even if they haven't completed the
tests yet.

OK, say the document is a fancy paper book with a real long lead time, or
the test person is on vacation or something: I try out the function myself.
If I had more time, I probably would have done that anyway. Unless there are
unusual circumstances, anything I write I have tried out myself.

If the functions aren't available to me, it comes down to specifics: how
critical is the function? How critical is the deadline? Is it critical is it
that the function be in the document or can it appear in an addendum or
"readme" file?

In my experience with this kind of situation, it is very common for the
deadline to slip due to factors other than documentation. So given the
circumstances that I usually encounter (but things might be different
depending on the circumstances) I would document the new functions in a
separate document (probably the readme file or a sheet of paper with a
positive spin about up-to-the-second technology) and complete the main
document on schedule. The next day I would be informed that the deadline is
pushed back a week, and I would roll the separate document into the main
document as soon as the developer returned, and have the document ready four
days ahead of deadline. But since I work in a company where things are
managed reasonably well, this kind of situation is very rare. Last minute
changes are common, but information is available from a variety of sources.

---
Office:
mike -dot- huber -at- software -dot- rockwell -dot- com
Home:
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