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Subject:RE: Release notes: term for bugs From:"Jonathan West" <jwest -at- mvps -dot- org> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 12 Jun 2002 17:18:20 +0100
>
> >
> >That's brings up a question, how do you all typically handle the
> inclusion of bugs in documentation? Just curious.
>
> It seems to me that most small software shops tend to document
> the software the way it's supposed to work.
I'd go further than that. In some small shops, it is only as they write the
code that they *discover* how they want it to work. The design follows the
writing of the code, not the other way around.
One job I did last year, I asked for the design documents so I could use
them as part of the basis for working out what the user documents needed to
contain. I was met with stares of blank incomprehension. There was *nothing*
in the entire place written down as to what the product was meant to do.
Even the testing group had to make up their test schemes by guessing what
the design intent was.
It was something of an education, seeing how a team of about 15 worked this
way. In fact, they found themselves getting seriously behind because there
were design, functional interface and UI inconsistencies between the
different developers, which were only getting caught at the QA stage, or
even worse, when I tried to document result. That is a very expensive way of
refining a software design!
Regards
Jonathan West
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