TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: indexing jokes? From:Guy K Haas <ghaas -at- NETSCAPE -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 6 Jun 1997 09:19:54 -0700
At 09:10 AM 6/6/97 -0700, Steve Fouts wrote:
>
...
>And I think that humorless people, be they undertakers or
>professional surfers, should be viciously lampooned in public.
>It is my considered opinion that there are far too many of
>them in our profession.
>
>When I am asked what a technical writer does I tell people,
>"You know those computer software manuals and help files that
>you never read, and can't understand when you do? I write those."
>
Amen!! For many years, I maintained/enriched/repaired the
COBOL manuals for a certain large vendor of fault tolerant
systems. COBOL! Dull, right? OK, when I was explaining
one version of the DIVIDE statement, I wrote an example
that started out
IF A IS NOT EQUAL TO B
AND B IS NOT EQUAL TO C
...Well, you can see the rhythm of that... I continued
it into a COBOL limerick. I put the paragraph name
LIMERICK. on it. And I made sure it was in the index,
figuring that a reader would notice the limerick one day
and would later want to find it again and not recall
which of the vast number of COBOL statements contained it.
The next writer who worked on it removed the citation
from the index.
--g
Guy K. Haas Software Exegete ghaas -at- netscape -dot- com
M/S MV-050 415-937-3773
Netscape Communications Corporation
501 Middlefield
Mountain View, CA 94043
My opinions are mine--Netscape's are their own.
TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot- Send commands
to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/ or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html
