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Subject:Re: Code Annotation of the Week From:Marguerite Krupp <mkrupp128 -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:voxwoman <voxwoman -at- gmail -dot- com>, John Posada <jposada99 -at- gmail -dot- com> Date:Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:51:19 -0800 (PST)
In most products, there are things that we don't document for users...that are for internal use only. This message might be one such instance. I don't know whether current software does this, but it used to be possible for certain types of errors to execute an unexpected branch or jump to an unpredictable area of memory/code. If the jump landed on an instruction, the system would try to execute that instruction, often with weird results and an eventual crash (A.K.A., "Prog Light").
I recall an error message that said, "STOP NOW! You are about to wipe memory. If you see this message, please note the registers, take a memory dump, and call <programmer name>." Of course, by the time the error showed up, that programmer was long gone. First we had to find the error. then the message, then fix both.
Marguerite
--- On Wed, 11/11/09, John Posada <jposada99 -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
From: John Posada <jposada99 -at- gmail -dot- com>
Subject: Re: Code Annotation of the Week
To: "voxwoman" <voxwoman -at- gmail -dot- com>
Cc: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 9:10 AM
> Unless she was trying to alert people outside the programming department
> about something that could be potentially embarrassing to the company down
Documenting it in customer-facing documnentation is not the way to
avoid embarrassing the company.
> the road. In almost all the places I've worked, the documentation department
> could not require programmers to change any code. We could point out gross
But the doc department can alert someone who can.
> On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 8:49 AM, John Posada <jposada99 -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
>>
>> One of the skills that a professional technical writer brings is to
>> know what not to document. I'd still nail the writer
>>
>> > The writer who was documenting the software, got in trouble for putting
>> > that in the document. Until she proved that the error message was
>> > actually in the software.
>>
>>
>> --
>> John Posada
>> Senior Technical Writer
>> NYMetro STC President
>>
>> Looking for the next gig.
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>
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--
John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
NYMetro STC President
Looking for the next gig.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Are you looking for one documentation tool that does it all? Author,
build, test, and publish your Help files with just one easy-to-use tool.
Try the latest Doc-To-Help 2009 v3 risk-free for 30-days at: http://www.doctohelp.com/
Help and Manual 5: The all-in-one help authoring tool. Full support for
team authoring with multi-user editing - both directly and in combination
with VSS-compatible source control systems. http://www.helpandmanual.com/
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as mkrupp128 -at- yahoo -dot- com -dot-
Are you looking for one documentation tool that does it all? Author,
build, test, and publish your Help files with just one easy-to-use tool.
Try the latest Doc-To-Help 2009 v3 risk-free for 30-days at: http://www.doctohelp.com/
Help and Manual 5: The all-in-one help authoring tool. Full support for
team authoring with multi-user editing - both directly and in combination
with VSS-compatible source control systems. http://www.helpandmanual.com/
---
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