If you worked in a small department (2 tech writers) within a larger
company (16,000+ employees worldwide), and you were given the task of
recommending a tool to use, what would you recommend? But wait, there's
more! Here's the info you have to base your decision on:
? The current tool for technical manuals is LaTeX
? The group of two may grow to a group of 5 before the end of the year
? The growth is driven by massive new products being developed
? The level of documentation complexity is increasing exponentially
? Long learning curves for tools are *not* a good thing (see "LaTeX")
? Single-sourcing is *required*
? LaTeX is used because it supports complicated conditionals like:
\ifthenelse(A + (\not B + \not C))(true_statement)(false_statement)
? The new tools need to support complicated conditionals
? Your manager trusts your recommendation and needs it today
? Whatever you recommend will be the tool you and your coworkers use
for these new massive doc projects. They'll blame you if it sucks.
I bow myself before the collective wisdom of the great techwhirlers!
Elizabeth "Is that complicated enough for you?" Allen :)
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Elizabeth J. Allen
Technical Writer
"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." -- Albert Einstein
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