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>Maybe all those "complex" tools, and hideous complicated formatting issues,
are the manner in which managers preserve the egos of employees by
disguising the simple fact that we rewrite correctly what others had
previously written badly.
Yes, given that techwriting is merely one of my several different roles, my
team wants me to "just write". Everyone wants the tools and formatting to
"just work" and thus vanish as a conscious task. I've been able to make
that happen fairly well but I'm still far from 1-click nightly doc builds.
I am still shocked at how far the techwriting tools and industry are from a
"just write" mentality. I sure love how all the tools are now focusing on
single-sourcing. I think software documenters should write with complete
agnosticism about the format or media the docs will be delivered in.
I favor a complete separation between writing and presenting. The biggest
factor making me question that, though, is Power Point type online
slide-show presentations, which provide ideal high-level graphical
walkthrough. In some ways, Power Point kicks butt over conventional docs
for high-level overviews, and Power Point shares a lot with STOP
methodology.
A landmark hotel, one of America's most beautiful cities, and
three and a half days of immersion in the state of the art:
IPCC 01, Oct. 24-27 in Santa Fe. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
+++ Miramo -- Database/XML publishing automation. See us at +++
+++ Seybold SFO, Sept. 25-27, in the Adobe Partners Pavilion +++
+++ More info: http://www.axialinfo.comhttp://www.miramo.com +++
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