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Re: Not being a programmer...(long)

Subject: Re: Not being a programmer...(long)
From: "Jerry Muelver" <jerry -at- hytext -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:14:13 -0600


From: John Posada

What I'm asking, and this is directed toward those writers who ARE
programmers, does this depth of detail help, hinder, or just make you
go "no help for me".


John, I'm a multi-language programmer, and have documented mine and other software engineering projects from client request through requirements specs through test case design module integration through testing through maintenance.....

The detailed info is not only helpful to programmers -- it's critical. Keep the programmers in the loop, and ask them what they really find useful. Programmers typically need to look up very specific items, and know the type of info they want before they start.

Cross-linking and hypertext linking in the docs is nice, but most the most used access route is the Almighty Partitioned Index -- or indices, actually. Keywords, variables, features, functions, objects, properties, behaviors, and whatchacallums all need to be grouped and each group listed in a separate index, with the elements either hot-linked in online dynamic applications (wikis or hypertext sets) or keyed to specific paragraphs in paper docs. Programmers can show you examples of what they like, and what they hate, and may very well already have (or will build) the text manipulation and extraction tools needed for the documentation process.

---- Jerry Muelver



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References:
Re: Not being a programmer...(long): From: John Posada

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