Re: Jargon Lovin' Fool

[Sandy Harris <sandy -at- storm -dot- ca>]

Laura Lemay wrote:
> 
> Re the discussion about how much education to put in a book,
> to quote Andrew Plato:
> 
> >1) The reader does not care about the material, therefore give the reader
> >the bare minimum to get the job done.
> >
> >2) The reader does care about the material, therefore give the reader the
> >complete picture of the situation.
> 
> Either one of these is a valid choice in documenting a product.  There
> isn't a right answer that works for every book, at every company, for
> every technology.  This isn't the sort of question that's going to be
> answered here.
> 
> However, this is probably the sort of question that should be determined
> by a pubs team as part of a doc plan ...

I think it is worse than that. In most cases, you will have some readers
of each type. Some readers are in both groups, possibly at different times.

I want a quick, simple "getting started" guide when I install your product
and begin to use it, but if I keep using it then I'm going to want complete
documentation sonner or later.

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