TIP OF THE DAY -- Help Screens

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Thu, Mar 25, 2004 at 11:16:11AM -0500, Courtney wrote:
> I could not agree more...the screens are set up in such a manner that its
> for people who know it, not for those who dont

Correct.  Yellow Cards (quick reference cards) have always been like
that.  They're not reference manuals, they're not tutorials, and
they're not intended to be either.

Marketing crap notwithstanding (and ghod knows, I've written enough of
it :-), you can't learn to be a decent database apps programmer without
reading the books, folks.

Now, *my* complaint is that the help files don't even do what they're
*supposed* to do all that well, and I know some of the long time
programmers agree with me... which is why Laura's QRG replacement files
exist, among other things.  Even they aren't perfect, but they're a
damn sight better than what ships.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Member of the Technical Staff     Baylink                             RFC 2100
The Suncoast Freenet         The Things I Think
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        "They had engineers in my day, too."  -- Perry Vance Nelson