Re: No wonder Borland Technical Documentation stinks


"Bob Dawson"

mostly nonsense I'm afraid.

I hope you're right.

Speaking as a developer with several years
experience as a professional tech writer,

I bow to your experience.

this is exactly the ad I want to
see from Borland.

Will you be applying?


"Research material without written technical specifications"

What does this mean? Are there swathes of material requiring
documentation
that have no technical specifications? Is is a free-for-all?

It means the same for a technical writer as it would mean for a
programmer:
that a very senior hire should be expected to be capable of greenfield
design and production, not just filling in and refactoring material that
others have already produced.

Do you take this to mean that this means "start from scratch"? It was the
bit about "without written technical specifications" that made me sit up and
go "huh?". In your experience what would you expect to be walking into?

[snip]


"Produce clear, accurate, and well-organized documentation that requires
minimal editing with minimal direction"

Again, this is a tech writer IV position--a senior/leadership hire. Would
you prefer they hire someone who can't be trusted to produce production
quality work? Would you hire a senior/team-lead programmer who couldn't
produce production quality code without continual supervision and review?

Don't be silly. There is no writer on this planet that doesn't benefit from
the input and guidance of a good editor. Are you saying you trust an author
of any description to be objective enough to pass their own work to
publication? Methinks the world of Blogging has a lot to answer for in this
regard.

[snip]


Actually this is exactly the caliber person that Borland /should/ be
hiring:
some one whou can come in to an agile team and be an impact player. And
the
fact that they're advertising the position while making layoffs elsewhere
may indicate an increased sense of the importance of documentation. It's
had
to see that as anything but good news.

OK, I'll admit that taking on 2 documentation staff whilst laying off
elsewhere does show promise, but I've been bitten so many times by
substandard and assumption-riddled documentation that it's become a bit of a
bete noir for me.


.

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