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Subject:Re: Expectations (possible rant - it IS Friday!) From:slb -at- westnet -dot- com -dot- au To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 21 Feb 2005 08:32:51 -0700
Hi Gene -
> All you need to do to see my point is look at the nearest
> shareware program, the documentation for which is usually
> written by the program's creator, who knows the program inside
> out and wasn't working to any hard deadline. The instructions
> for these are usually horribly written, but still sufficiently
> usable to enable you to work with the program.
This is the sort of situation I had in mind when I said most
writers can only write in one way. Joe Shareware Programmer
writes for an imaginary user who is just like Joe (when he
was a bit younger and didn't know everything Joe knows now).
To the extent that the audience happens to resemble Joe (Joe
uses graphics software; Joe writes graphics utility), Joe's
procedures would be usable, I take your point and would agree.
It would be surprising if someone who has domain knowledge and
can write basic sentences *couldn't* write a usable procedure
for someone just like them. I guess I thought of it as a
trivial case.
So let me tighten up my statement:
- I doubt that "anybody" could produce a reasonably usable
product document for unfamiliar users doing unfamiliar tasks.
> Project management skills are not a substitute for writing
> skills, they are required *in addition to them* for successful
> technical writing.
I'm not sure if you're disagreeing with me here. So we're both
saying PM skills are necessary but they're not sufficient?
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