Reading documentation....

[mikeh@minivend.com]

Dear All,

I have heard the MiniVend documentation described with adjectives
ranging from "awful" to "great". I am doing a lot of documentation
for MiniVend 4, keeping some things, removing lots of things, rewriting
things, and adding new stuff. But sometimes that is hard work, so I
need a place to vent.

I will let everyone in on a secret; I am not a programmer. At least
I wasn't when MiniVend started. Those hardy few of you who have used
MiniVend since 1996 or so will know this if you have read the code. There
is much code in MiniVend 3 which is downright amateurish. The code that
is new within the last couple of years is at a fairly high and professional
level; or so I am told by people I respect.

The tool I use most often is Perl. The tool I use second most often is MiniVend.

Would it surprise anyone to know that I re-read the Perl FAQ and documentation
on a regular basis? Probably not, though I think that perhaps it is not widely
done.

But does it surprise anyone that I re-read the docs I have written? Not
maybe as often as I refer to the source, but I do it all the time. I
have to.  Though I have a very good memory, there is absolutely no way
I could retain everything about MV. But there is another, perhaps more
important reason.  I have learned a lot with experience and my perspective
has changed, and things I thought were obvious some time back don't look
quite as obvious now. And I think of better ways of doing them. As it
is with *any* complex system that I have used over time.

So I encourage anyone using any complex language or system, be it Perl, 
Apache, MiniVend, MySQL, or whatever, to periodically re-read the documentation.
You may be amazed at what you learn in light of your hard-won experience.

Best,
-- 
Mike Heins                          http://www.minivend.com/  ___ 
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