>I needed my technical knowledge to match that
>of my audience...
Mark...if you only know as much as your readers already know, what
benefit do they get from the documents...they already know it.
>I did not need to know what the developers
>knew: how to build a compiler, how to architect
>a streaming parser, or how to write portable
>C code.
This is not what the developers know about that the customer cares
about, just as you knowing how to build a TOC is not what the customer
cares about. What the developer does know is what a specific piece of
"portable C code" does with data, that is important to the customer.
Then maybe if you also had that knowledge of how that piece of "portable
C code" works, you could enlighten the customer on using the application
containing that piece of code to do whatever it is that they do, better.
Before anyone jumps on this in the wrong way, I'm not saying that to do
your job, you MUST know how to read the C code or any advanced
subject...I'm just saying that if you did, it would be better.