Re: Do have programs have poor documentation? (was ... Re: Why? -- "A Modest Proposal")
On Friday 30 December 2016 01:37:53 Xen wrote:
> Re Lisi:
You clearly find wittering on yourself more fun than actually reading what
other people have written. You have actually quoted my precise words, then
accused me in your paraphrase of having said something completely different.
Try reading what I have actually said, whilst making some attempt to
understand it, instead of just contradicting it. You do enjoy contradicting
people, don't you?
I am glad to hear that the education system in Holland is better than here. I
am not surprised and do not doubt it.
Lisi
>
> "No. The problem here is that the overlap between highly competent
> technical
> people (who find tech fun) and people who love writing, and find writing
> fun,
> is so small. I personally know one, and he is not a developer.
> Developers
> love developing. Writers love writing. Neither regards the other as
> occupation as fun."
>
> You do realize that coding implies hammering on a keyboard too, right?
>
> :p.
>
> I am a person who both enjoys writing documentation and writing
> programs. I have been programming since the age of about 8 and since the
> age of about 12 I was already documenting code and writing documentation
> for the would-be users that never came about ;-).
>
> Cause like, there was no internet anyway, and pretty much no way to
> distribute anything.
>
> For me there wasn't.
>
> I question whether taking on some directed SoC project (a tutored
> project on something you might not have chosen or come up with yourself)
> as some forms of bug hunting might fall into that, would actually be
> more fun (to me) than writing or improving documentation.
>
> Bug hunting seems like a rather poor way to spend time to me. You'll
> just be tracing someone else's code. That's not coding, that's
> analysing. If anything, reading other people's code is not fun. To me it
> isn't. I like creative developing much more than fixing stuff made by
> others. How entirely tiresome that is!!!
>
> Writing documentation on the other hand is easy, all of what you do is
> probably gonna be on one page (or one successive document), you're not
> hunting around for stuff, you can probably base yourself on stuff
> written by others before you, which makes it less mentally tiresome,
> since the data is already there and you only have to rewrite it or
> reorganize it.
>
> So miss Lisi, I don't know who you are, but I don't think your emphatic
> "no" is warranted.
>
> I don't believe in doing other people's work anyway, but just saying, to
> me writing documentation or improving documentation seems like a lot
> more fun than doing other people's obnoxious coding work ;-).
>
> I can only see it happening if some university already gave courses on
> technical writing though however.
>
> Documenting someone else's code (or program) might not be fun, but
> writing someone else's program may not be fun either.
>
>
> "See my paragraph above. And then there is the educational system which
> here
> anyway tends to separate the techy from the arty very young."
>
> In Delft there are master studies (and master courses) in which students
> of two different branches have to cooperate. For example, in Information
> Architecture there are joint courses between IT students and Business
> students. Simply because it is about modelling organisations, and they
> are good at both, or both are good at that.
>
> So my question to you would be:
>
> - Do you see this as being the case, or are you wanting this to stay the
> same?
>
> Because from your answers I would get that you very much enjoy this
> staying the same. I mean, the separation you mention.
>
> You seem to revel in this separation and that there are no technical
> writers who actually enjoy writing while also being developers of some
> kind.
>
> Because you can do one of two things: keep things the same, or get this
> rift to heal. The proposal by Richard Owlett was a proposal to heal the
> rift, but you seem to be fighting that.
>
>
>
> Because really. There is one thing that is always clear to me here.
>
> The ones that are bad at writing also have attitudes that make them bad
> at writing but that they will defend to the death.
>
> The thread and the responses by Catherine Gramze is one example of that.
> She defends bad writing. She comes up with all kinds of excuses as to
> not want to explain anything. Saying it is Good to not explain stuff.
>
> If you are going to say it is Good not to explain stuff, BAD WRITING
> WILL ENSUE.
>
> So if there is a dearth of good writers, it is because there is an
> overabundance of bad attitudes. To writing. You try to convince me that
> explaining stuff to new users is bad because you want your man pages to
> be reference only material.
>
> That is something only a bad writer would say.
>
> And anyone saying that would become a bad writer.
>
> It is a bad writing attitude.
>
> It is providing justifications (and excuses) for your bad writing.
>
> But more importantly, it is saying that writing badly is a Good thing.
>
> If you stopped calling bad documentation Good, maybe something would
> happen. If people in general recognised bad writing as bad writing,
> maybe they would become good writers. Maybe they would become good at
> it.
>
> But if you insist that badly written text or badly written documentation
> is actually good, well no small wonder then that there are no writers
> who enjoy doing it. You hate doing it yourself. You defend badly written
> texts. And you even attack writing that is actually good (even though
> you may not even have seen it yet) because you cannot even imagine what
> such writing would be!!! Cause you're a bad writer and can't do it
> yourself!!!
>
> Speaking in a bit of a general term here, not directing to anyone.
>
> The problem is not that you can't do it. The problem is that you call
> good writing bad, and bad writing good.
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