Quote of the Day

[Jim Barrow]

>Gene Kim-Eng <techwr at genek.com> wrote:
>>Ladonna Weeks <ladonna.weeks at comtrak.com> said:
>>
>> The few times I've run into developers with negative attitudes
>> toward tech writers, I remind them that if it weren't for us,
>> they would have to write the documentation (as in the old days).
>> Since many of them would hate writing documentation (even if they
>> could), that seems to help them see value in our profession.
>
>I've never experienced this attitude from a developer
>who has had to write his/her own documents.  Those
>people usually greet me on first meeting with some
>remark like "Am I glad you're here."  The ones most
>likely to have the attitude are the ones who've never
>had to do their own docs and would never be able
>to if they did.

That's one possibility.  In my case the developers mistakenly believe that they would be able to produce required documentation from the JavaDoc tool.  I don't mean that they think they can generate their comments, I mean they think they would be able to generate fully-formatted, ready-for-publication documents, replete with graphics, TOC, headers and footers.

- Jim