Jul 05
2008The Nature of Software Development
Filed Under: Documentation & Help Manuals, National Instruments, Technical Communication/Writing, Technical Writing Profession
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This past several weeks, I’ve been working on a 1.0 documentation project, a new toolkit for LabVIEW. This is the first project that I get to write from scratch and it’s been very exciting, yet at the same time, challenging. Being a 1.0 product, there’s a lot of fluidity in the software. The user-interface (UI) and functionalities keep changing and I’m just one step behind in keeping up with all the changes! I’d be working on a topic today, and the next day, the topic would no longer apply.
In the beginning, I was sitting near the content experts so I could stay on top of all the changes, but then I decided that I like my dual-monitor setup too much to work away from my workstation. So here I am writing and rewriting a few topics over and over and over again.
Why we at NI write documentation during development phase I don’t quite understand. It’s like rehearsing an unfinished symphony. Or building a house without a blueprint. Or driving on an unpaved road. I can’t say I didn’t write a documentation plan. That’s just the nature of software development and technical writers have to keep up with all the changes.
I can’t wait until when the UI freezes and I no longer have to trot behind the changes.
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