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Shanghai Tech Writer

Technical Writing, Technology, WordPress, Blogging, Web 2.0, National Instruments, LabVIEW, Shanghai, China
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05
Jul
The Nature of Software Development
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Categories: Characteristics, Documentation & Help Manuals, National Instruments, Technical Communication/Writing

This entry is part 5 of 8 in the series Working on a Documentation Project

Working on a Documentation Project

  • Working on a 1.0 Documentation Project
  • Using Lorem Ipsum
  • Writing a Documentation Plan
  • Sitting Near the Content Experts
  • The Nature of Software Development
  • Documentation Written By Another Technical Writer
  • Preparing Documentation for Beta
  • Entering Edits from Documentation Review

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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The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.

Related Articles:

  • Five Minutes Usability Test (1)
  • How Well Do You Work with Your SMEs? (0)
  • Working on a 1.0 Documentation Project (4)
  • Writing a Documentation Plan (4)
  • Typical Conversation as a Technical Writer (0)

2 Responses to “The Nature of Software Development”

  1. lucy Says:
    July 7th, 2008 at 10:08 pm

    :smile: good article

  2. Documentation Written By Another Technical Writer | Shanghai Tech Writer Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 10:03 am

    [...] hopefully during NI Week. While there have been quite a few hiccups in the past few weeks with massive design and UI changes, I’m nearly done writing most of the [...]

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