Try answering these questions and score yourself.
- How many times have you seen a question about a problem being repeated?
- Why do you they created FAQs?
- How many FAQs have you read?
- What was the last release notes you read?
- Which book did you read last (not related to your course)?
- What new techniques did you read and discover in the last two years?
- What kind of documentation did you write and share for your last project?
- What was the last software manual you read?
- What was the ratio of comments to code in
- Programs you wrote
- Programs you read
The answers to these questions might not be a simple yes or no, but it will give you a fair idea of how we programmers are lazy and totally ignore documentation.
2 comments:
I think the hardest problem is to make software so obvious that you don't need manuals/documentation to use it. Well, maybe you'll need it for the more advanced features, but it should be minimal...
But I agree with your general precept that programmers don't read. And that is a shame!
Gopal, in the UI world, people did try to make the program obvious and added context sensitive help A.K.A Hit the F1 key.
I agree, that the software should be obvious, but how does a command line program become obvious?
My emphasis was on people missing out on reading what is already there and documented and then running programs or using code as if there is a mystical software entity that will help them understand in a jiffy what they need.
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