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Subject:RE: Is this the future of technical writing? From:Erika Yanovich <ERIKA_y -at- rad -dot- com> To:"Cardimon, Craig" <ccardimon -at- M-S-G -dot- com>, "'techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com'" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 29 Oct 2014 06:21:21 +0000
Fiddling with tools and processes while spewing jargon, more than concentrating on the contents - I hope this is not the future of tech writing. Tools and processes are meant to serve us, the more transparently, the better.
Currently, if we want different outputs from the same source, we must provide the contents in a way a computer program can process. So we define structures (usually trees) and views with pretty complex formatting. We can move the pieces around (change the structure), pull them from a repository, conditionalize, add tables, illustrations, videos, whatever.
To share the contents with others across the globe, we locate the structured contents on a site and tag each piece with version number, status and other relevant data. We can allow others to add contents and comments before and after publishing. We can then incorporate those comments (or not).
We can set up an automated publishing process that assembles all the ready pieces as predefined and places the output in a predefined location. Some more complexity if we want translations as well.
Isn't this what all the tools in this category do these days? If yes, then let's cut the jargon. If not, what have I missed?
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