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>Therefore, if the look of an app, whether written by MS or XYZ Company
>conforms to specific guidelines, so should the documentation, whether
>written by MS or XYZ Comp.
This means you are writing the documentation to suit the application and the
developers (and their egos), rather than the end-users (readers) who are going
to be using the app.
>If you think it changes very little and very slowly, hang out at a bar
>in the middle of Silicon Valley on a Friday night when most of our
>audience is handing together. I did when I lived in CA and worked in the
>Bay area. You would think you came from another country...and we are
>writing for them. Pick up a copy of Wired. It is VERY different, yet
>just as valid and credible to its intended audience as something from
>STC is to us.
Oh, garbage, so many of those companies come and go, why should I pay attention
to 20-somethings who have too much acne and no social skills. Silicon Valley,
like the rest of California is another country...too much sunshine and natural
disasters or something. I've read Wired and can usually never get through the
"technical industry is holier than thou" attitude stuff. You'd think some of
these techies invented the cure for cancer!!
>No, I'm not obsolete because a book written in 1919 is obsolete...I just
>prefer to evolve to more current material. If you spoke like someone
>from 1919, how would people around you view you. Why should I write like
>someone from 1919?
BTW, Strunk and White, if you've ever seen it, is like a writer's bible. When I
say 1919, I meant it for a point of reference assuming that you knew it has been
updated about a gazzillion times and has been reprinted every couple of years or
so. It is still widely used, and you will see it on the desk of many good
writers (not good techies who think that because they were once programmers than
can now do technical writing better than us writers...and I still say that you
need to be a good writer before you're a "technical" writer because a good
writer can write about anything).
