Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 22:19:04 -0700 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: Chuck Robey <chuckr@picnic.mat.net> Cc: Nate Williams <nate@yogotech.com>, Dennis <dennis@etinc.com>, Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai <asmodai@wxs.nl>, Joe Abley <jabley@patho.gen.nz>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Is FreeBSD dead? Well, not in theory... Message-ID: <38CC7A48.B948C670@softweyr.com> References: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0003121639400.32633-100000@picnic.mat.net>
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Chuck Robey wrote:
>
> On Sun, 12 Mar 2000, Nate Williams wrote:
>
> > > >That's also why I am wasting my time slowly documenting the FreeBSD
> > > >internals in my spare time.
> > >
> > > "slowly" is the key word here. Real products are documented before they are
> > > in commercial use.
> >
> > Really? That's very different from my experience as a commercial
> > software developer.
> >
> > And, it's not the experience I had from using your products as well.
> > Documentation was as sparse as the FreeBSD documentation, but this is
> > typical of most projects, except for government projects which requires
> > truckloads of documentation.
> >
> > That's the main reason that government projects are rarely on time and
> > budget, and never end up with the features that are desired. They spend
> > all their time documenting, and no time implementing. :)
>
> You ever see those docs they write? Generally, it's an odd case of
> nothing actually being better than something.
Hey! Some of my past work resembles that remark!
> I did once see a company that did the docs first, and then used those docs
> as the design template. Any changes in the design had to be modified in
> the docs first, and the docs were under a version control system.
>
> That was the one and only time I ever saw that. Dennis is living on
> another planet than we do. And don't call the stuff that comes with
> consumer products docs, because they are usually written by marketing, and
> usually largely a work of fiction.
I actually work for a company that writes both software and hardware
design specs before plunging off into development work. Of course, the
specs are never updated after the fact, so they're completely worthless
for any follow-on work. In effect, the C, asm, and VHDL becomes the
as-built documentation, which is quite horrid.
--
"Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Wes Peters Softweyr LLC
wes@softweyr.com http://softweyr.com/
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