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Avoid unnecessary strings of zeros ("P/N 1350000056").
Avoid unnecessary punctuation ("P/N 135-678.90-2/4").
If you use lettered prefixes ("P/N QT75729A2"), keep the prefix chart as brief as possible.
Avoid using letters that can be confused with numbers (O for 0, I for 1, etc.).
Never use case-sensitive letters (e.g., QT75729A2 and qt75729a2 should be the same document).
Use a consistent method for distinguishing releases from drafts: letters in suffixes, numbers in suffixes, dates in suffixes, etc.
Ask as many people as possible to review the system before you implement it. Ignore anyone who finds a way to complicate the proposed system, and worship anyone who finds a way to simplify it.
-----Original Message-----
From: Hannah Drake
Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 2:17 PM
To: techwr-l
Subject: Coding documentation?
Hi TechWrl Family,
(I'm loving this list by the way) -- Now that my company has started to grow a library of professional documentation, someone suggested assigning part numbers to the documentation instead of just the date it was released.
But, the convention they use for our part numbers doesn't quite work for documentation.
What numbering conventions can you suggest? Right now I just keep the latest version of something on our Google wiki, which has a version history, so that sort of works. But I feel like it would look more polished if we started using some fancy, "no idea what that number means --
QT75729A2 is so mysterious" numbering system.
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