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Jane,
I think you might have misunderstood Andrew. (And don't feel bad; you
wouldn't be the first to misunderstand him. :-)
What I got from Andrew's rant was that the choice of tool used to create a
document is at best secondary to the quality of the information it conveys.
A disorganized, obfuscated muddle is still going to be a disorganized,
obfuscated muddle, whether it was written with FrameMaker or with a #2
pencil on Post-it Notes (R).
You see, Andrew has this crazy idea that content matters. I agree with him
on that point. (And he does create content, besides running an agency.)
Regards,
Roy M. Jacobsen
Documentation Supervisor
Great Plains
1701 38th Street Southwest
Fargo, ND 58103
USA
"[The Y2K bug] was sorta like dodge ball. You hardly ever get hit by the
ball you see." -- Patricia Jacobsen (age 12)
-----Original Message-----
From: Carnall, Jane [mailto:Jane -dot- Carnall -at- compaq -dot- com]
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2000 6:28 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Worthless Tech Comm Degrees
(...or Yes, Another Platonic Monologue)
>FrameMaker is totally, utterly, one billion percent irrelevant if your
>document contains inaccurate, misleading, or disorganized information. This
is
>why the remainder of the known universe thinks FrameMaker is a big,
bloated,
>useless dinosaur. Because only tech writers have this bizarre, quasi-sexual
>attachment to it.
You know, this is completely bizarre. Is Andrew Plato really of the opinion
that using FrameMaker to create a document will automatically create a
document that contains inaccurate, misleading, or disorganised information?
Or that because FrameMaker is a tool for technical writers, it is a big,
bloated, useless dinosaur?
But then Andrew's not a tech writer: he runs an employment agency for tech
writers. Is this yet another example of "Them that can, does: them that
can't...?"
Jane Carnall
Technical Writer and Compendium
of Useless and Arcane Knowledge
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