Comments on: Can better technical documentation give your business a competitive advantage?

By: David Farbey

David Farbey — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:08:00 +0000

Hello Anne,
Thanks for your question.
Tools like the one you describe are useful if documenting databases are the core of what you need to produce, and they serve the needs of your audience. They may have a secondary benefit in helping you understand the inner workings of the programme you are working on.
If you are producing documentation for non-technical users, you need to concentrate on their tasks, from their point of view – which is often far removed from the way things look to the database developer.

By: Anne

Anne — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 02:40:00 +0000

I’ve recently decided to become a freelance technical writer, and your article caught my eye. To assist me with some of the mundane IT system documentation, I’m using documentation generators (e.g. Adivo’s TechWriter for Databases http://www.adivo.com/techwriter-for-databases.aspx).
I’m very happy with the tool, and I think it’s giving me a technical advantage over others because I can generate/update doc quickly and add my own annotations and additional content easily. But I wonder what your opinion is of such documentation generators and if you think they help or hinder the process of making better documentation??
Thanks for any advice.

By: Dean

Dean — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 03:44:00 +0000

Good article, thanks.