Documentation and Parental Cruelty

[Judy Perry]

Well, and then there is the separate issue of documentation that is good
and meaningful for a child and that which is good/meaningful for an adult.

And, of course, this in turn is separate from documentation that's good
for an adult new to programming and one which is aimed for a seasoned
programmer coming from entirely different languages.

Has anyone seen a good set of docs for which one size fits all?  (Other
than Danny Goodman's books, that is) ;-)

Judy

On Sat, 23 Jun 2007, Richmond Mathewson wrote:

> Eric Chatonet wrote:
>
> "Fortunately, you have a father able to help you"
>
> As little as possible:
>
> What I like about the whole x-Talk family of RADs is
> that new users can get-up-and-running with little or
> no external help.
>
> If one spoon-feeds a child information one ends up
> with a parrot whose natural creativity has been
> stifled.
>
> So:
>
> 1. Started off Andro with a calculator - no reference
> to the Documentation.
>
> 1.5. Moving buttons and random numbers.
>
> 2. The "corny" movie-player (playback speed, pause,
> play backwards, etc.): everytime Andro asks a question
> I have said "look in the Documentation".
>
> Now, while part of this is out of my innate sadism;
> another part is because I am extremely curious how a
> child with no programming experience will interact
> with the help-system. His blanket comment: that the
> help system is crap: is next to useless itself. I am
> now trying to get him to explain exactly what his
> problems are with it - that might prove useful.
>
> 3. revSpeak and user-feedback: completely relying on
> documentation.
>
> sincerely, Richmond Mathewson
>
>
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