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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uokvax!emjej
From: emjej@uokvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: Re: Quality of AT&T Documentation
Message-ID: <3400055@uokvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Dec-84 02:33:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uokvax.3400055
Posted: Mon Dec 10 02:33:00 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Dec-84 00:46:58 EST
References: <887@ihuxn.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:ihuxn:-88700:uokvax:3400055:000:992
Nf-From: uokvax!emjej    Dec 10 01:33:00 1984

Speaking of documentation--when I worked on a large project developed
under Unix, one of the things that some coworkers and I, after MUCH
flailing through stuff, tried to get adopted is this: keep the
documentation under the same system (RCS/SCCS/etc.) as the code, and
set up the makefiles so that NO change in code gets into anything even
approaching something that goes out the door (or, for a project as
large as that which we were working on, out of one's group, or even
cubicle for that matter) unless the documentation changes as well.
(Sure, people will try simply touch(1)ing the docs, or checking them
out and back in again, but it would be fairly easy to catch that kind
of bogosity.) Alas, much as management said they supported mom and
apple pie, we couldn't get them to put their money etc.

I nevertheless recommend this technique to the folks faced with the
unenviable job of updating and cutting the condescension and cutesy-poo
out of Unix documentation.

						James Jones