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Subject:RE: Squashed egos... it ain't pretty! From:SteveFJong -at- aol -dot- com To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com Date:Thu, 7 Oct 1999 11:12:42 EDT
barry -dot- kieffer -at- exgate -dot- tek -dot- com wrote:
>The ignorance I have to deal with goes something like this: Program Manager:
>"We need to cut down on the time and cost of all of the documentation you
>create. Instead of writing all of the (paper) manuals, how much time and
>money can we save if you JUST put everything online?"
That rubbed me the wrong way, too, and that created a spark. I'm as much in
favor of online documentation as the next guy, but the truthful response is:
"Well, I'll save some time and money on print production, but online material
is compiled software, and Test group will have to verify every page and jump.
Oh, and they'll need to write detailed test plans, too..."
[The fact is, while not called out on a budget, writers and reviewers do just
that sort of testing for printed documents.]
To speak to the base topic, a contract engineer once told me that he would
write the release notes for his project, but that I could "decorate them any
way [I] wanted." I tried to embroider the logo, but I ran out of teal floss
8^)
-- Steve
Steven Jong, Documentation Team Manager ("Typo? What tpyo?")
Lightbridge, Inc., 67 S. Bedford St., Burlington, MA 01803 USA mailto:Jong -at- lightbridge -dot- com 781.359.4902[V], 781.359.4500[F]
Home Sweet Homepage: http://members.aol.com/SteveFJong
