Shane Ginnane writes:
<begin quote>
As usual, my attitude is "give me the data, give me some sensible generic doco,
let me worry about how my shop is structured".
<end quote>
This is the crucial point. Skeletal documentation that is to be specialized to
be locally appropriate in detail must be processed by a knowledgeable person
who does not need it a fortiori. Worse, it is obsolescent ab initio; it must
be reprocessed by this or another knowledgeable person each time the local
situation changes in detail; and it never is.
This is another of those notions that are persuasive chiefly to a certain kind
of trainer, who judges that new or revised information should always be
presented in what international lawyers call «municipal» terms, at the lowest
possible level of abstraction, lumbered with evanescent detail that reifies
inessential distinctions, making a chair painted brown different in kind from
one painted black.
John Gilmore Ashland, MA 01721-1817 USA
_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from your
inbox.
http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_2
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO
Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
