atw: Re: krismus and kristeaniti
- From: Michael Edward Granat <megranat@xxxxxxxx>
- To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 10:20:01 +1100
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!
Michael Granat
Write Ideas
At 22:45 19/12/2003 +1100, you wrote:
>when i am between jobs i shift my focus from writing to talking by turning
>up the volunteer wick
>there, i meet amongst other irregular products of creation, religious
>people who believe that the bible is the word of god
>those same people tell me that the bible is full of contradictory
>statements, therefor they must study the meaning of the words - they do
>that until they see blue in the face or their family relationships fall apart
>hence my questions:
>if god really exist, would he allow people to read a book that sends
>conflicting messages that are alledgedly his
>and therefor:
>is god the worst technical writer of all times
>?
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