Another Doc Thought

[Richard Gaskin]

Dan Shafer wrote:
> It may not be all that obvious but one of the reasons there's not  
> better documentation on SOME of the things in the Rev IDE is because  
> someone knows they're going to change in an upcoming revision and  
> doesn't want to spend gobs of time documenting something that will  soon 
> be obsolete.
> 
> I KNOW that's the case about at least one aspect of things because  the 
> RR folks were kind enough to steer me away from a project I  thought of 
> a while back by warning me that it would be changing in an  upcoming 
> release.
> 
> Already my first book is, while not obsolete, at least a little aged  
> because of IDE UI changes that took place between its release and the  
> 2.6 product.
> 
> That's one reason I hate to write printed books these days. An eBook  
> can be published and then updated as needed one time at no production  
> cost.

Amen to that, brother.  I did the technical edit for "GoLive 5 Bible", 
and it took months to write, test, edit, and revise.  Once released, 
like most books on software products it had a shelf life only slightly 
longer than the time it took to write it.  GL6 came out less than a year 
later, GL7 less than a year after that.

Most software undergoes a significant UI overhaul on the average of 
about once a year.

I will never write a book on a specific software product.  I'd write 
about the language happily, but the UI?  Fuggedaboudit.  :)

But the question here is:  Is Rev's UI really that opaque?  Or is it the 
underlying concepts which drive the UI?

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
  __________________________________________________
  Rev tools and more: http://www.fourthworld.com/rev