Prompted by an excellent article - Subversion for writers - I thought it might be useful to offer a Windows view. Like most software groups, our development team use a version control system to manage multiple versions of the product; we have customers using many previous versions and all are maintained in the same system so we can patch fixes back through multiple versions.

Our team of writers use the same system, although as we are using FrameMaker we lose some of the nicer features but the core reasons for using a version control system remain - files are locked by whoever is working on them, and we have a full version history of changes made, including when, who and why.

I got home this evening to find the next issue of Communicator sitting on the mat. Thankfully it was in one piece so obviously the cat hadn’t found it…

Anyway, just to confirm that, yes, I am the same Gordon McLean who features in the final piece in the magazine. Worryingly that means you now know what I look like, so I can only hope it doesn’t put you off visiting my blog again in the future.

I’m also going to be featuring in the monthly newsletter, but more on that when it happens.

The article was a “day in the life” style piece and although re-reading it brought a few omissions to mind, it remains a fairly accurate portrayal of a typical working day. Truth be told I don’t actually have many days like that at the moment as we are nearing a release date but the main bones of the article are still valid.

For those that aren’t ISTC members (and why not?) I’ll be posting a copy of the article soon, meanwhile I’m off to read the rest of the magazine.

Can’t recall where I saw this but it struck a chord so I grabbed the main tenets with a view to expounding on them at a later date.

However, as simplicity suggests, I really don’t need to bother.

• Because there is complexity in purity.
• Elegance in plainness.
• Intricacy in streamlining.
• Richness in reduction.
• Depth in minimalism.
• Surprise in uniformity.
• Innovation in re-use.
• Cool in the avoidance of cool.
• And there is true sophistication in simplicity.

These were not written about Technical Communications but they might as well have been. I’m seriously considering printing these off and pinning them up on the wall.

I hope, whether you celebrate it or not, that you are having a peaceful time with you and yours, and I hope that Santa is good to you (not YOU obviously, you’ve been bad).

Have a wonderful day tomorrow, and remember that it’s all about the people you love, not the presents you get or the turkey you burn.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

(What are the odds? If he smashes the nail on the head again tomorrow I WON’T post it here, I promise)

I really don’t know how Scott Adams manages to tap into these things, or is the software industry REALLY that similar the world over?

As the discussion of what we call ourselves, how much we should earn, what we do, why and what we need to justify, and why few seem to really GET what we can offer to a company (but that last one is kinda our fault), continues to rage across two mailing lists, this seems timely:

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I really don’t know how Scott Adams manages to tap into these things, or is the software industry REALLY that similar the world over?

Regardless suffice to say that, in our Extreme Programming (XP) development group (XP is a form of Agile development), todays’ Dilbert raised a bit of a chuckle:

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A big hello to anyone visiting from the TICAD conference. I’m writing this post in advance of the conference itself (the joys of scheduled publishing), so hopefully my presentation went well and you found it useful. I hope the page of links I mentioned is of some use to you and anyone else who pondering whether or not a Wiki lies in the future of their organisation (yes, it does!).

The very act of pulling the presentation together has been both fun and educational for me, it has helped me fully understand some things I took for granted and hopefully that is reflected in my words. My thoughts on the experience, and the rest of the conference sessions, will be posted here soon.

If you are visiting from the TICAD conference, please leave a comment, any and all thoughts, feedback and criticisms are encouraged.