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Re: [OM] Sagelight

Subject: Re: [OM] Sagelight
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:11:09 -0800
On 1/23/2012 6:00 PM, Chuck Norcutt wrote:
> What you say is mostly true but perhaps IBM played to a different tune
> than what you're familiar with. We certainly employed technical writers
> who were technically neither developers nor users but the technical
> writers were an integral part of the development team and in on much of
> the design and development session meetings going back to the first
> stages of development.  ...

My favorite IBM documentation story comes from the mainframe world. I'm sure 
you saw the bookshelf fulls of tech manuals 
documenting such systems. A friend was tearing his hair out trying to fix 
something I came nowhere near understanding. 
After hours of frustration, he finally found a thread in the manuals that 
looked like it would lead to an answer. Those 
manuals had lots of cross references. After following a few into different 
books, he found the definitive answer. "See 
your Systems Operator." His scream "I AM the f..ing Sysop" could be heard over 
all the floor.

My personal favorite was from a PC system, back when they had real manuals. 
"See page xxx" was the direction on that 
very page. Circularity. I"ll bet I still have that page stashed away somewhere. 
My heirs will find it and wonder why I 
kept one page from some ancient program manual.

> ps:  We had great fun while doing it.  The major system test application
> for OS/2 was a networked implementation of the Starship Enterprise where
> each node in the network was a different function on the ship... the
> bridge, the transporter room, the engine room, etc.


Makes work sound almost like fun. I sometimes got a great deal of enjoyment out 
of code bashing. Testing was less fun 
and documentation came in last. I have a little project from my old employer 
"In case you get run over by a beer truck", 
as my replacement put it. I'm to document the program flow for converting 
output from the big systems for my little one. 
Somehow, even though the hourly rate is good, I keep putting it off. :-)

Moose

-- 
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
-- 
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