Some software types do use manuals

[Steve Fouts <sfouts -at- ELLISON -dot- SC -dot- TI -dot- COM>]

|} Regarding reading manuals:
|}
|} I know that I have an exceptional husband, and I guess the
|} fact that he uses reference manuals and reads instruction
|} manuals makes him more so.
|}
|} He lists these software manuals as well written, IHHO:
|}
|} * VAX VMS

He _likes_ the gray wall? When I had to use the gray wall I found it
a bit formidable. Everything you wanted to know about VMS was in there
SOMEWHERE, and if you had the time to find it, it was pretty well
written. But if you wanted to know if there was a command to do X,
you had better clear your calendar for the rest of the week so you
could find out.

AND, since the documentation set was so huge (they don't call it the
gray wall for nothing) chances are pretty good that the site only had
one copy of it. When you did figure out which volume the answer was
likely to be in, you'd find that it was checked out to an engineer
three flights up who'd had it for a week and took it home to read it.

I think that some usability testing would have told them that they
needed to parse the information better, and deliver the most commonly
needed stuff in a smaller package to the people who were most likely
to need it. I, for one, could have used a small, perfect-bound,
"Introduction to Bonehead VMS Commands," on my desk at all times.

Well, there's no pleasing everyone, is there?

    _______________________
   /  ___  __/__\  \ /  / _\    Steve Fouts
  /___ \|  |  ___\  |  /  __\   sfouts -at- ellison -dot- sc -dot- ti -dot- com
 /   /  \  |      \   /      \
/_______/__|_______\_/________\ "Read over your compositions and, when you
meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out"
                                        -- Samuel Johnson