Hi Erik,

>>I've looked at some and I basically agree BUT... can you blame them too much? If they see what MS gets away with, then why would they put any more into the job? MS basically 'sets the standard' and virtually all others follow.
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>Uh, Ok. but maybe the simpler explanation is that immensely complex software is immensely difficult to document. And it is virtually impossible to include every behavior, characteristic and nuance in the initial set of docs. At least there is a KB where MS continually strives to improve, ammend and add on to the documentation.
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Well the evidence that I see says that MS does not "continually strives to improve, ammend and add on to the documentation". Sure the DOCERR stuff will usually result in amendments, but what about those KB articles I mentioned (later)? "working as designed" and "How to..." articles deserve the exact same consideration and specifically in the HELP.

>>Things like MSDN and other online stuff makes it much better than average, I will admit. But a lot of this is to supplement what should have been in the basic product documentation in the first place.
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>So you are holding MS to a standard that you have never seen displayed?
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No, not at all. Mainframe IBM stuff, albeit written in "IBMese", were thorough in the extreme. The earlier PC stuff was aslo much better done by just about everyone and Lotus 1-2-3 stands out in my mind. I hear very good things regarding Quicken documentation. I know that I find Partition Magic's doc to be very thorough yet the same company's Drive Image docs leave a whole lot to be desired.

>>All of the KB articles answered by "working as designed" or titled "How to..." are strong indications of failure in the original product documentation, else "the design" would be evident from the documentation and the "How to" also would be clear.
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>I think this is awfully unrealistic. 4th gen development products are inherently extremely complex beasts. As I stated above, the designers of the software can't know all of the ways that people will use the functions and features, and its not evident at creation time that any of these issues will arise. I deal with this issue with my software all of the time.
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And do you update your docs to clarify some of these things? I don't really see that happen in MS docs regardless. And just look at many of the "how to...." articles and you will see that they are relatively simple things that existing docs suggest you can do but many get stymied trying to do so.

>>No, I am wondering out loud if the profit potential for MS Press publications might be one of the major reasons why basic product documentation is deficient in the first place. *If* in fact the software product *is* (said to be) cheaper because of the present situation, then I would say:
>>a) the trend toward CD-ROM/DVD documentation will kill this 'argument';
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>Documentation is not expensive because of the media. It is expensive to produce.
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Well I think it is *also* expensive media-wise (paper specifically). Else MS, for instance, would also include the hardcopy of the books (say the VFP Programmer's Guide) in their product box. I think Mr. Hentzen had something to say on the matter as regards the latest Hacker's Guide too.

>>b) Maybe they could offer a higher quality integrated documentation for a higher price.
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>What's the difference between buying ot from MS, or buying Tamar and Ted's Hacker's guide, and using it's included chm file as your docs?
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There are a coupla things inherently "wrong" with this (though I am even on record here as having very high praise for the Hacker's CHM file):
a) I've gotta look in mutliple places;
b) T&T could only guess at many things because even they don't have the details that should be available;
c) T&T may have missed many things simply because the documentation is unavailable to let them find even more stuff;
d) And if MS really *does* work hard to improve their docs, then how come T&T even needed to come up with a 6.0 version of the guide. MS had a clear roadmap in their 3.0 book to make tons of documentation changes yet almost none were done.

>>This is very very BAD. It is the REAL killer of innovation. If MS can make their apps run faster or be much easier to employ by coding hidden OS functionality (known (or understood) only by them then others cannot possibly compete with that.
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>What have you ever seen that makes you think Office or other apps use hidden OS functionality? Are you making this up?
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No, I am not making this up. As you yourself said, isn't it better to be able to run down the hall and ask the OS folk to put something in to make life easier than.... This is unfair for competition. And it applies to far more than just the next killer app. *IF* all of the OS functionality were made known to any developer who wants it (and will pay for it, of course) then who knows just what someone could come up with??

>>OK, but why are you so sure that they are releasing the WHOLE story to outside developers. I simply have to doubt that they do.
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>Why???
If for no other reason that there may be features in whatever-it-is that they are not so sure they will be 'supporting' in the future. Or, because they choose to release only a subset of the functionality to the public, keeping the more esoteric things for internal products only. In summary, thay have far more reasons to NOT tell us everything than they do TO tell us everything.
While we have protected and hidden properties and methods available to us in VFP, I'd guess that there are also MSOnly properties and methods all through MS code.

But I forgot to mention before (so I'm glad you gave me this chance) that I seriously doubt that a split will happen, and the fact that MS is said to be making another 'proposal' convinces me even more. At least any split is years away if it happens at all.

Cheers,

Jim N