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|} Can someone enlighten me (and probably a few others too):
|} what is "top down" design and what is "bottom up" design?
|} I've often run across the terms in tech writing and
|} other design contexts, but when I ask for definitions, the
|} replies don't seem consistent. (Is this like "another think/
|} thing coming?")
|}
If you start writing a book by deciding the overall organization of the
book, create a top level outline, then subdivide the chapters into topics,
then, eventually, write the prose that belong in each section, you're
using top-down methodology. If you grab a topic and start writing, then
decide how the various topics fit together after you have a bunch of
them written, you're using bottom-up methodology.
If you start with page one of "Read This First!" and end up with the the
-zz option in the index, you're just plain weird.
_______________________
/ ___ __/__\ \ / / _\ Steve Fouts
/___ \| | ___\ | / __\ sfouts -at- ellison -dot- sc -dot- ti -dot- com
/ / \ | \ / \
/_______/__|_______\_/________\ "These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper,
but _minds_ alive on the shelves." -- Gilbert Highet
