Re: The Crucial Role Of Documentation

[Marc Stiegler <marcs>]

My statement that the documentation was "even more important 
than the tools themselves" was based on the assumption that, 
for our first round of C and C++ tools, we would have little 
control over the funness of the programmer's development environment.

Can we build more lively tools (as distinct from more lively 
documentation) in the next year that support people who are working 
in MPW, and ThinkC, and Microsoft C, and Borland Turbo C, and 
Glockenspiel C++, and Zortech C++, and Sun C, and PARC Place 
Cynergy? My assumption has been that each of these would be a 
separate hand-crafting job, and that in many cases it would be 
impossible without persuading the environment manufacturers to 
modify their own stuff.

We can deliver lively documentation regardless of the programmer's 
choice of compiler. Can we do the same for the tools themselves?

If we can deliver lively development tools regardless of that 
choice, then I definitely withdraw my more extreme assertions. 
Instead of saying the lively documentation is overwhelmingly 
compelling, I merely say that lively documentation is stunningly 
valuable :-)

Do you have plans for compiler-environment-independent lively 
tools? I'd like to hear about them.


--marcs