nigam@MWSUN.MITRE.ORG (Alok Nigam) (08/25/89)
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 89 18:40:07 PDT
From: PAAAAAR%CALSTATE.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Text Preparation in Software Engineering
I'm working on a text book aimed at those about to graduate and
work as "Software Engineers". It covers Technical skills rather
than management and is targetted at Computer Scientists with no *real*
experience.
QUESTION: What tools do you use to prepare documentation?
Sample(?) answers: TeX,
A Muckintosh with WordPuke, A PC with MSWeird,....
NOTHING - real engineers don't document dumbo!
nroff/troff with tbl/eqn and the -xyz macros
Dr. Richard J. Botting,
Department of computer science,
California State University, San Bernardino,
CA 92407
PAAAAAR@CCS.CSUSCC.CALSTATE
paaaaar@calstate.bitnet
PAAAAAR%CALSTATE.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDUhallett@shoreland.uucp (Jeff Hallett x4-6328) (08/26/89)
In article <8908251333.AA03942@mwsun.mitre.org> nigam@MWSUN.MITRE.ORG (Alok Nigam) writes: >Date: Tue, 22 Aug 89 18:40:07 PDT >From: PAAAAAR%CALSTATE.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU >Subject: Text Preparation in Software Engineering > >I'm working on a text book aimed at those about to graduate and >work as "Software Engineers". It covers Technical skills rather >than management and is targetted at Computer Scientists with no *real* >experience. > >QUESTION: What tools do you use to prepare documentation? >Sample(?) answers: TeX, > A Muckintosh with WordPuke, A PC with MSWeird,.... > NOTHING - real engineers don't document dumbo! > nroff/troff with tbl/eqn and the -xyz macros >Dr. Richard J. Botting, >Department of computer science, >California State University, San Bernardino, >CA 92407 >PAAAAAR@CCS.CSUSCC.CALSTATE >paaaaar@calstate.bitnet >PAAAAAR%CALSTATE.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU Well, I've written about ~400 pages of software engineering and other technical documentation using a combination of MS Word and FullWrite on a Macintosh Plus with 2.5 Mb of RAM. I've written about ~250 pages of similar documentation using LaTeX on a Sun workstation and have used other tools like Interleaf's TPS and Frame's Framemaker 1.0-1.3. My preferred environment is a Macintosh using Word 4.0. Since it looks like you'll need one, Word comes with a spelling checker. I've also found Expressionist 2.0 (from Alan Bonadio & Associates, now Prescience) good for equation formatting, Word Finder (from Microlytics) to be a good thesaurus (I think Word comes bundled with this) and MacProof 3.0 pretty good at helping me proof-read my stuff. As an aside, if you are going to write a book, you may want to get out of the habit of slandering various platforms and tools. In practice, I've found that the best tools are the ones that help people get the job done, even if they are not my personal first choice. Personal experience talking here - I've drawn a lot of heat even jokingly hosing different platforms. As another aside, in general it is getting quite common for graduating BS/BA level computer science majors to claim that they are software engineers or have done software engineering work. I've done a lot of recruiting for GE looking for computer scientists and I've seen it a lot. They get pretty confused when asked specific S/W Eng. questions and find out that software engineering is really a valid field of study rather than some buzz word (although it is quite handy for that too :^). I wish there were some way of warning these people that until they've done it, they ain't it and just writing programs doesn't do it. -- Jeffrey A. Hallett, PET Software Engineering GE Medical Systems, W641, PO Box 414 Milwaukee, WI 53201 (414) 548-5173 : EMAIL - hallett@positron.gemed.ge.com
hlaban@toto.uucp (Tom Hlaban) (08/30/89)
GE Medical Systems, Milwaukee, Wis. - Interleaf on Sun