Re: experience with Requisite Pro?

[Beth Agnew <bagnew -at- INSYSTEMS -dot- COM>]

Alfred Watkins (awatkins -at- pobox -dot- com) wrote:
>My company is considering changing to a program called Requisite
>Pro to develop our requirements and design documents. It's supposed to aid in
>version control, even assist the engineers in the design of the software,
and make toast.

I'd stick with Framemaker. We have been using a UML product to design and
develop one of our software products. It claims to assist in design, version
control, iterations, and will even generate code. On the surface it looks
like a great timesaving tool. In reality, it is a nightmare. It has
effectively derailed what used to be a workable process. To be fair, we are
"assuming" that most of the problems we're having are related to a steep
learning curve, but who knows when we'll finally get comfortable with the tool.

The worst part is that it came with a handy little add-on (more money, of
course) that will turn the models into documentation such as requirements
and specifications, and even manuals!
     *** Sketchy requirements. Haphazard specifications. And very, very BAD
manuals.***

Bottom line is that you can only automate the documentation process so far.
You will probably spend more time trying to fix what it spits out than
writing from scratch in the first place. Remember when user manuals were
written by the programmers instead of writers? These tools help programmers
publish legible (vs. readable) documentation. I don't think they are any
help at all to "real" writers.

--Beth Agnew

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