dita — archive

[Bruce Nevin]

I produced IMO an instance of what Eliot was describing as an effort at readability that resulted in inaccuracy. I sent it to him first. His technical review corrected my misunderstandings. That's the role of technical review. Others are performing their technical review of it this week. The point here is that when something that is accurate when properly read is difficult to read properly, the reader's understanding of it may be inaccurate. It's of questionable benefit that some text is completely accurate (by some set of criteria) if intelligent readers understand it in a way that is inaccurate. So it's not quite so simple as a version of the classic trilemma "cheap, fast, good, pick two", restated as I heard it on today's call as "readable, on schedule, accurate, pick two". Accurate reading is contingent on readability in a way that "cheap" is not contingent on "good". /Bruce