Electronic Documentation

[Ann Balaban <annb -at- DADD -dot- TI -dot- COM>]

>> Well, this is a _discussion_ group, so here goes.

 To ???
 Regarding your message about the tail wagging the dog, have you ever used
 electronic documentation?

 I've seen some antiquated ED systems that I would agree are inadequate
 compared to paper documentation.  But the most popular current systems are
 very slick and offer some tremendous advantages over paper (from a USER'S
 standpoint).  The biggest advantage is ease of finding the information you
 need.  The search features on a good system let you find the info you need
 in the blink of an eye-- much faster than sorting through a pile of big
 books (even if they have decent indexes and TOCs, which is rare).

 Other advantages include:
   * Ability to add your own notes and bookmarks that are not lost when the
     book is updated (with a paper copy, you'd have to recopy your notes).

   * Ability to link your online info to your software applications and use it
     for help.

   * Ability to call other programs from your online info.

   * If you distribute your information online, it is always current.  Users
     often keep old, out-of-date paper copies around.

   * If you have a worldwide organization, you can get online information to
     all of your users MUCH faster than you can get paper copies delivered.
     (For example, one of our offices is in India.  It generally takes
     anywhere from two weeks to two months to get a book to them; it takes
     only a few minutes to load their information online.)

 Electronic/online documentation solves most of the problems our users
 complain about the most-- they can't find the info they need in the books,
 they don't know when the books have been updated, it takes too long for them
 to get the books in the mail.  (When we stopped supporting our online system
 while searching for a new one, we started getting a lot of complaints.)

 I prefer electronic/online documentation-- the only problem with it is that
 you can't read it on a bus.

 Regards,                               Submitted for KA by:
 Kathlyn Auten                            annb -at- dadd -dot- ti -dot- com
 Texas Instruments
        (I will forward any responses to Kathlyn, since her e-mail
         doesn't seem to work.)