On 18 Jul 2010 at 14:10, John Culleton wrote: > On Sunday 18 July 2010 12:30:37 Alexandre Prokoudine > wrote: > > On 7/18/10, John Jason Jordan wrote: > > > My hat is off to the Scribus team for having created a > manual. Few open > > > source projects have a manual. > > > > Quite in opposite. Most GNOME and KDE applications > have manuals. Just F1 :) > > > > > Most don't even have PDFs. At least half > > > don't even have a help file. > > > > Producing a PDF out of DocBook/XML from any > GNOME/KDE app's help is > > not exactly rocket science. > > > > > Some would create documentation, but hate to write, or > can't > > > write at all. To most it never occurs that documentation > is important. > > > > Writing documentation is not job of a programmer. Then > don't have to > > even think about it. > > In my days as a programming supervisor, it was considered > good form to create user documentation first, then do the > coding to fit. For program documentation (HIPO diagram, > flow chart, Decision Logic tables etc.) that was generally > done and approved before coding started. > > In today's world things are different, but the person who > understands the functionality is still the best person to write > the user guide. I have never understood the unwillingness of > programmers to write user guides. After all, English (or > whatever) is just another language, like C or Python.
Have you ever read some of Microsoft's help and users manuals? They are written in a language I don't understand, even though it is English. Are they written by programmers?
