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I think we're getting into one of those "Grass is green"/"No! The sky is
blue" arguments. Somewhere along the line, the topic changed from "who
is the author" to "how do you prove you wrote something/does it help
if your name is on it?"
Well, in some respects, David is correct. If he wrote it, I would call
him the author (even though someone else was responsible for creating
the manual). If he came in for an interview and showed me the manual,
regardless of whether or not his name was on it, I'll pick his brain
about it just the same. And, I suspect he would provide good answers:
I wrote the words, I know just enough about DrawThingie[tm] to make
these boxes and lines, the binders came from Martians who visited the
company many years ago, I did the research. This is exactly what I
wanted to know!
But, I don't say I'm the author just because I supervised the production
of something. That would be blatantly false. I beleive that we've
finally arrived at a simple fact: making manuals is more than just
writing. We should use many more verbs to describe what we do/have done.
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glen accardo glen -at- softint -dot- com
Software Interfaces, Inc. (713) 492-0707 x122
Houston, TX 77084
