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Jim Shaeffer suggested that I "glossed over this phrase from the original
poster": <<complete with forms, dialog boxes, and menu
commands that we would never have foreseen.>>
True enough. I assumed that the original poster meant that the developers
know all existing interface objects, but have no clear idea how they will be
combined in practice--rather than assuming that the users could create
interface objects nobody had ever seen before. In hindsight, not necessarily
a good assumption, but if true, the task is very similar to documenting a
programming language's API, and checking the archives for information using
related keywords could provide additional insights.
But as Jim suggests, if the software is more protean than I imagined, this
is a truly intractable documentation problem.
--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
"User's advocate" online monthly at
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Hofstadter's Law--"The time and effort required to complete a project are
always more than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's
Law."
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