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Subject:Re: Examples of good tech writing? From:"Damien Braniff" <Damien -dot- Braniff -at- asg -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 18 Jan 2006 09:49:09 -0000
Re 'Dummies' etc, I think it comes down to the standard TW mantra - know
your audience. They are, by definition, aimed at a totally novice
audience and for that audience they're quite appropriate. They're not
'techie' books and the reason TWers can find them a trifle annoying is
that we're often somewhere in the middle - not novices and not really
techies. Because we have to be quick at picking technology etc up
quickly we probably tend more towards the techie books :-).
One of the best books I came across (many, many years ago!) was a book
on programming when I first went to university. It was a book on Basic
(gives an idea of how long ago <g>) and it was very informally written,
legible script font and it had little drawings of ants (I think)
scattered throughout the book highlighting common bugs! I'd find it
irritating now but at the time it was great - they were like a 'graphic
index' for common errors.
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