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Sean Hower reports: <<i recently heard someone say the following: "I'd
almost rather have it [the content of docs] be consistent and be wrong, than
to have documents that aren't consistent." i didn't really know how to
respond to this. I was kind of dumbfounded actually. What's a good way to
respond to such a statement?>>
Assuming I can safely respond with a wiseass comment, I'd respond as
follows: "That's a great relief to me. From now on, for every procedure in
the manual, I can simply write 'open the File menu and select Delete All.
The beauty of this is that it makes the software look very easy to use (only
one step per procedure, no matter how complex). Moreover, it's 100%
consistent, and I can complete the documentation faster than the developers
can code it. Sure, it's a little misleading, but can't the users figure
things out for themselves anyway?"
Of course, I've been known to make such wiseass comments even when it wasn't
safe to do so, but I don't recommend that as a long-term survival strategy.
A wiser response might be "I understand the importance of consistency, but
let's see if we can't figure out some way to be both consistent and right
without causing you problems. That's not much harder than just being
consistent. So, what problems are you having? Are we too slow...?"
--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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"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is
noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience,
which is the bitterest."--Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478
BCE)
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