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Subject:Taken to task? From:"Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> Date:Wed, 20 Jan 1999 13:56:31 -0700
Ben Kovitz <<...sure don't want to call these things "internal tasks"
and "external tasks", but I'd like to make a clear division between
them in the manual. To replace "internal" and "external" I'll use the
company's name and "customer" (as an adjective). But "tasks". Ecch.
Such a distasteful word.>>
Well, to be honest, I don't have any problem with "task" as a word.
It's short, elegant, and it means what it says and says what it
means. However, since there _is_ a compelling argument in favor of
expressing things in terms of what the user hopes to accomplish
(i.e., the results) rather than in terms of the steps necessary to
obtain those results (i.e., the tasks), you'd be well justified in
changing the word if it offends you. Given that the goal is to define
what results the users want to produce, perhaps you could rephrase in
terms of "deliverables", "results", "achievements", or any other
synonyms that match what your audience will be producing and that
fall more euphoniously on the ear than humble "tasks". But surely
there are bigger bugs to fry?
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
