Re: Plagiarism vs Fixed Botches
We had a new software developer start yesterday; she spent the entire day proofreading some old internal documents and correcting what she felt were errors, such as changing all instances of "able to" to "capable of." Maybe she could have spent a few minutes looking at code, too.
<snicker>
Went through something similar on one project a couple of years ago. The product (not computer-related) was ready to go out the door. The docs were ready for printing. A new manager (new to the project, at least) insisted on changing every instance of "can" or "does" to "is capable of", and every instance of "will" to "might". Oh, and he wanted to remove all the cautions and warnings because they "looked tacky". And he wanted the photos centered instead of left-justified, and he wanted the body text fully justified.
Our project lead threw fits---useless fits. The instructional designer for the training classes screamed. All that got him was a sore throat.
I smiled and said "Sure. It's all billable hours." Then I handed the manager an estimate of my charges for the fixes to the 3-volume doc set, and a schedule revision that showed the product shipping 2 weeks behind schedule. After a few minutes of bug-eyed horror, he agreed that the changes could wait for the next revision.
No, I did not bid on the revision contract. Psychiatrists have a name for people who do things like that.
/K@
Kat Nagel, MasterWork Consulting Services katnagel -at- eznet -dot- net
"Remember, you weren't hired to think---you were hired
because you have opposable thumbs."
/C.Barsotti, New Yorker cartoon, 26APR99
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