Let the classics remain as classics

The world's smallest deer discovered in the Himalayas, says AP.

"I do not like to track metrics like the number of comments as a quality measure. Anything you track is likely to cause some change in behavior," says Richard L. Hamilton, author of Managing Writers: A Real World Guide to Managing Technical Documentation, in an interview. He also says that DocBook is used more than DITA. Interesting.

What kinds of documents do Agile software development require? Read this blog post by Eelco Gravendeel.

Making a strong case to let sci-fi movie classics to remain as classics is the article, Top 10 Sci-fi movies that should never be remade

2.6 million viewers tuned in to the final episode of the most recent series of Ladette to Lady, a TV serial that is related to reviving the debate, Why can't a woman be more like a lady?

Interview with Ian Rankin, one of my favourite crime fiction writers.

Oxford University faces flak over land use. Oxford University dragged into Indian land-grab row.

Too much frenzy over diets and fitness damages your health, says Extreme celebrity workouts can damage you.

Noted ecologist, Vandana Shiva, says there are more hungry people in India than in sub-Saharan Africa.

Cafes, eateries, restaurants

Cops relax timings for cafes, eateries, said a headline in one of the Bangalore newspapers. At first, I did not bother about the headline. A little later I wondered what exactly is the difference betweeen a cafe and an eatery.

The Oxford Dictionary I have says that a cafe is a small restaurant selling light meals and drinks. In North American English, it also means a bar or nightclub.

Eatery, on the other hand, is an informal expression for "a restaurant or cafe."

So, why did the newspaper use this headline? The news report has another word " eating houses". A little research did not show any discerning difference between the two words. Which means this is bad sub-editing. The only explanation for the error is the need to fill the 'white space' for the two-line heading.

It is a fact that the quality of English in Indian newspapers are really pathetic. While it's not my case that newspapers should follow Strunk and White, it is really sad to see lack of basic English grammar and usage rules in most of the papers. This also mean that even newspapers have started to neglect English. This trend is really dangerous, especially for students. To know contemporary English, please find something else to read.

When the media loses sense

The primary source of news for the average Indian is the news channels. These channels are lively, and the added effect of visuals is tremendous. But absence of any regulation, including self-regulation, has made most of these channels a laughing stock and the target of reprimand in coffee shops and software company cafes.

I agree that, compared to newspapers, there is indeed a dilution of core "journalistic" values in news presented by news channels. Instead of news, as defined in journalism textbooks and media classes, TRPs and visual angle dominates most of the news channels. Therfore, when media companies conduct event management or has an event management wing, then it's no wonder that marketing and business takes precedence over "news".

What is lost is trust in the objectivity of the news channels. The scare and hype generated over the swine flu in India again shows that the media have lost their responsibility and sense.

When everything is vague

"Without interacting with the user, you can’t learn the user’s vocabulary and the tasks they need to perform. Without a knowledge of user vocabulary and tasks, your help material is destined to be unhelpful. Without helpful user assistance, your role on the project team and your own sense of importance on the project diminish."

I have pasted these words from Tom Johsnon's excellent post on the various level of harassment and stumbling blocks encountered by the hapless technical writers. Another method of ostacrization is "the domain is so vast" or "the functionality is too complex" comments. This is equivalent to telling you that I am not share my knowledge that easily with you.

When does a writer die?

When I told my journalist friends that I would be joining a software firm as a technical writer, a few raised their eyebrows. While a couple of them said this was a good move, others were less optimistic and predicted that I would soon regret that decision. While I have not started to regret that decision in a very bad way, there are things I enjoy in technical writing.

The most important thing I like is the attention to detail. As a technical writer, I have to measure each and every word, each and every sentence, each and every paragraph, and each and every punctuation mark I insert. Every word I write is dear to me and I don't want people to misread it.

I also realised that continuos and constant rewriting improve my deliverable in whatever format the team wants. Rewriting is not a boring task, but it is an interesting task. For others, writing is all about writing something new. They don't understand that if they properly rewrite their own writing, it will look new. It should look new; otherwise, the writer in the technical writer is fake and is dead.