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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ben Davies [mailto:bdavies -at- imris -dot- com]
> Sent: June-12-12 4:11 PM
> To: McLauchlan, Kevin; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: RE: Developer "Best Practices" content
>
> "An inhabitant of a corner office has decided that our documentation
> lacks a page or section that would be Best Practices for programmers
> using our SDK. From my point of view, the entire SDK docs are what a
> customer/developer might want to know. Some years ago, that portion of
> the docs included a Tips and Tricks page until I was asked to remove
> portions that had become outdated. The whole thing went away."
>
> Why was the tips and tricks page just "go away" after you were asked to
> update it?
Please re-read the words in the order they were written. Take note of
shifts in tense, etc.
The Tips and Tricks dealt with peculiarities of implementation that
were smoothed out in later releases of the product. So those bits
of text were no longer needed. No other nifty bits of text
immediately suggested themselves, so the section just disappeared
from the SDK for lack of content or any reason to exist.
Many years later, somebody (no names) got the idea that a
proper set of documents should include a page or section
titled Best Practices or similar. So I went looking for
ideas and examples. So far, I've gotten exhortations and
some blaming, but not a lot of sterling examples... must
check the spam filter again, just in case...
-k
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