[mythtv-users] OT: Documentation?!?! (was Re: MythFrontend 0.21: What is a watch list?)

[Andrew Close]

On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Jon <jon.the.wise.gdrive at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  On Mar 12, 2008, at 7:34 AM, jedi wrote:
>
>  > On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 08:25:40AM -0600, Brian Wood wrote:
>  >>
>  >> On Mar 12, 2008, at 8:20 AM, Jon wrote:
>  >>>
>  >>> That's the way it works at my company, you wrote the code, now
>  >>> document it so that we can support it. I work in the 'Incident
>  >>> Management' department, and I gotta say, our documentation SUCKS.
>  >>> This isn't the programmers faults though. Half of them speak english
>  >>> as their second language, and all of them spend most of their days
>  >>> writing in the Java (I STILL can't understand who thought THAT was a
>  >>> good idea) and C.
>  >>
>  >> I'd make a two-word suggestion to your company:
>  >>
>  >> Tech Writers
>  >
>  > The only place I've ever seen dedicated tech writers was a
>  > non-profit. This was the sort of place where they would
>  > squander "whatever was left over" at the end of the year.
>  >
>  > Didn't matter if it was a place with 50 people or 50,000 or
>  > if it was a valley startup or a Global 200 company.
>
>  Yea, tech writers cost money that could be put to use elsewhere. The
>  board of directors wants as much profit as possible, and they feel
>  that if you're paid to write code, then you should be able to
>  document it too. And honestly, where I work, if it makes sense, we
>  don't do it. I still haven't figured out how we're so successful...
>  (if you live in the US, it's VERY likely that we print and mail your
>  cell phone bill, your cable bill, and possibly your financial
>  statements, we also have a center in the UK)

yeah, it's amazing that some of these businesses are profitable.  i've
worked at a couple financial/trading businesses, two large GE
businesses, and a handful of other organizations that are just plain
screwed up.  they throw money at the silliest things but then don't
want to spend money to improve the infrastructure or purchase tools
for their development staff that would cut development/testing time in
half.  and regarding lack of documentation, they wonder why it takes
weeks to bring a new person up to speed...
and as Jon mentioned above, these companies are big companies that are
basically running the country, financials, healthcare...  very scary.

-- 
Andrew Close