atw: Chanukah and The Granat "Explanation"
- From: Bill Parker <renew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 19:21:04 +0800
Love your work Michael! Rival Corporation ....indeed.
Bill
>
>From: Michael Edward Granat <megranat@xxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: krismus and kristeaniti
>
>So what's new, "adennel"?
>
>Most manuals written by a developer for his or her own use, without
>considering the needs of the intended audience are much like this.
>
>Remember that the Requirements Specification (Volume One) was written by an
>the original design team, whereas the User Manual (Volume Two) was written
>by an "Information Architect" and latter day Consultant who, thirty years
>after concept development, fell off a donkey, hit his head on the ground
>and conceived a new methodology that tried to merge several legacy systems
>(and even some mythology) into one almost completely incoherent text that
>was about as representative of the system as a fairy tale.
>
>You get what you get when you leave the documentation up to someone who is
>trying to please everyone including senior management, without writing it
>for ease of translation. The man needed some mentoring, a peer review, an
>editor, a decent proof reader and, above all, a couple of paracetamol tablets.
>
>For example, one later version of the operating environment ended up being
>entirely object oriented (against one of the ten primary system
>requirements). Its development was even based on a translation mistake
>from the User Manual, the marketing team deluding themselves into promoting
>that a clone of the main program could run without being properly
>installed. (They mistranslated the term for "any available executable" as
>"virgin hard drive". Really!)
>
>Somehow, in the process, the file system was corrupted when the battery
>backed up clock failed (they even got the application release date wrong as
>December 25, 00 - the year 1000 bug?) when it was actually released in
>June/July as a Beta. Someone from a rival corporation then had the
>application deleted, which (thankfully) was restored a few days later from
>the off-site backup.
>
>Certainly, I've never seen a manual with more stuff ups than Volume Two. I
>mean, the users didn't even have a concept of Hell until that tome
>came around.
>
>Oh well. When in doubt, refer to Troubleshooting section in Volume One.
>
>Cheers and Happy Chanukah!
>
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