Re: documentation

[hjohnson@pluto.njcc.com (Herbert R Johnson)]

On Tue, 12 May 1998 22:06:46 -0500, Tom Droege <droege@wwa.com> wrote:
*>
*>This is a reminder to everyone.  If you want to see something preserved so
*>you can find it again in the future, make it a TN.  There is no review, no
*>one will hold you to any standard, and there are no page charges.  What
*>more could you ask?

Fair enough. (I should complete my Orion/Orion work and make a TN.)

*>Lots of stuff representing many hours of work has shown up in the day to
*>day correspondence.  It is mostly now lost.  But if you make it a TN you

Not so. I've created documents from the correspondence. Richmond
has archives and (somewhat) indexed the correspondence. But more to
your point, one should make efforts to create documents, and to support
those who create documents from your work. It's tough, I know from
both ends.

The fact is that documentation is mostly a thankless task. Also,
most techies don't get known for their "brilliant documentation", but
for their "brilliant discovery" or "brilliant creation". And, stuff
(supposedly) becomes obselete fast, so what's the point of writing it
up?

The point is: even if technology changes, methods often don't. And
often new technology users can still benefit from old designs. Today's
"supercomputer" designs are tomorrow's "use your old PC for" designs,
so there it is. Among us "amateur" astronomers, engineers and programmers,
we are VERY thankful for those "professionals" who document their efforts
so WE can follow where they have lead. The best example of this is
the Linux effort: and TASS is becoming a good example of "open"
astronomical efforts. That's thanks to both the "doers" for writing
so much about what they do, and the "documenters" for accumulating,
collating, and editing what is written.

It's my belief that a LOT of "small" science is going to happen this
way. And not so small: check the various Web sites of govt. supported
research. So all this is good practice, IMHO.

More docs also save us from continually re-discussing old stuff. That's
*my* adversion, anyway.

Thanks to Tom for bringing this up.

Herb Johnson

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