Re: The Floodgates are open (mainly 'cause the docs don't explain how to close them)

[John Posada <john -at- TDANDW -dot- COM>]

>..... use the product by yourself, design some graphics, and write properly), I
> get the "Oh yah... I can do that" line. But the last time any of these
> people had their writing looked at by somebody with anything of an educated
> opinion on grammar, Cindy Lauper was all the rage.


I worked with a developer (his name is Craig) for the first time about a
month ago to create a Release Note for one of his UNIX programs that we
use internally.  I created an outline (you guys might remember my
soliciting input from this list), submitted the outline to him, told him
what I expected, and then waited the 3-4 days for his first input.

I received that input, about 6 pages, along with a big smaile and his
comment that "Hey...this was pretty easy...maybe I should be a TW
contractor too!"

I just smiled, then started working with his input.

To make a long story short...It's now a month later, the Release Note
went from 6 pages to now over 25 pages of material, he's been asked
questions he didn't even know existed:

Me:      Hey, Craig..What is the installation procedure? It didn't get
born on the server, did it?
Craig:   Installation? Oh, yeah, I forgot.
Me:      Hey Craig...You say "Do xxx and you should see the following
output."  What if you don't?
Craig:   Oh, yeah, I forgot.
Me:      Hey, Craig...You have the user using vi to edit the process
inittab and the server's cron...should they back them up first?
Craig    Oh, yeah, you're right.

etc.
etc.
etc.

He's not smiling now and he hasn't told me he wants to be a writer
lately.


--
John Posada, Technical Writer (and proud of the title)
The world's premier Internet fax service company: The FaxSav Global
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My opinions are mine, and neither you nor my company can take credit for
them.

  "One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good
poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few
reasonable words.", Goethe
  "Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader
will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will
certainly misunderstand them.", John Ruskin

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