Is a bad index better than no index?

Subject: Is a bad index better than no index?
From: Berk/Devlin <armadill -at- earthlink -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 20:35:12 -0700

On Wed, 23 May 2001 09:20:54 -0400, "Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> wrote:
>David Castro wonders: <<... is it better to create an index that isn't great
>(due to my lack of an indexer's skill), or to leave the document without
>one?>>
>
>Any help is better than none, and there's a big difference between a bad
>index (unusable or actively harmful) and one that's just not a shining
>example of the craft.

This reminds me of the time we wrote a series of competitive reviews for Personal Computing Magazine. One month, we reviewed integrated accounting packages. These products are sets of applications, each application costing upwards of $600 and there might be six to 10 or more applications in a set.

Anyway, there was one extremely-difficult-to-use product, which shall go unnamed, which had a separate manual for each application and not even ONE index and the help was -- not helpful.

Well, we rated the product last of the six or seven tested and not only because it rated a zero when its lack of index was compared to the indices (which existed) of the other products.

In response, the software vendor sent the magazine:

1. A half-hour long videotape explaining why the product should not have been rated as we rated it;
2. A 42-(no, I am not making that number up)-page irate letter.

Part of our response, which the editor published in response to published excerpts from the vendor's letter, was to the effect of: "Hey, no index is no index. Can't argue about quality if quantity is zero."

Oh, and have I ever told you guys about my weirdo high school English teacher? The one who would wave her hands around and intone, "Any experience is experience. If you fall out of a tree and break your arm, well, that's an experience." My kids are really sick of hearing about her.

Write that index, David. It'll look great on your resume.

--Emily

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ Emily Berk ~
On the web at www.armadillosoft.com *** Armadillo Associates, Inc. ~
~ Project management, developer relations and ~
extremely-technical technical documentation that developers find useful.~
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