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Subject:RE: When it is right to be wrong? From:"Lisa Wright" <liwright -at- earthlink -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 6 Feb 2002 22:47:30 -0800
John,
Thanks for raising this point. It did get lost in the thread where it
was mentioned.
I'd like to put in a vote for being straightforward with the user about
a) shortcomings in the documentation ("we don't yet have this
information"), b) shortcomings in the software ("be careful here: it's
easy to make a mistake" or "this feature is not yet programmed"). I'd
like a doc set in which all the important information is addressed at
least in this manner. I'm hard pressed think inaccurate information is
worth the time it took to write it.
This is NOT about the speed with which information can be made obsolete
by changing circumstances. But, for the record, when I have worked in
production environments, the documentation is always up-to-date unless
the developers are slamming new code directly into production (bad
programmer, bad!), AND the users get release notes/notification of
changes.
People will respect and appreciate honesty and real information.
Lisa
-----Original Message-----
On Behalf Of John Cornellier
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 8:01 AM
A little while ago [Darren Barefoot, I think] wrote:
"Get it done, then get it right, then get it pretty. ... I'd rather have
a complete documentation set that's 90% accurate than an incomplete doc
set that's 100% accurate."
I agree about the pretty part. But I can't think of any situation where
inaccurate documentation is better than no documentation.
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