One problem with documentation is often it is written by experts for experts "here is all we know about..." rather than task based. "So you want to do ... here is the info you need, with links to the parameters" . The task based also needs "and when it doesn't work ... try the following". Writing good documentation is hard.
I worked on a product where there were hundreds of options - but only a handful were important. We had a user guide and a reference guide which made it a bit easier. Other area's I've recently worked with just have the reference guide (of all the options). Colin On Mon, 26 May 2025 at 09:49, Martin Packer <[email protected]> wrote: > Periodically I test Generative AI with stuff I darned well know about. I’m > still unimpressed. > > Oh well, accuracy seems to be deprecated in favour of expedience. > > Cheers, Martin > > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> on behalf > of Andrew Rowley <[email protected]> > Date: Sunday, 25 May 2025 at 23:56 > To: [email protected] <[email protected]> > Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: RTFM > On 26/05/2025 3:31 am, Lennie Bradshaw wrote: > > I have found AI to be really useful in negotiating the wealth of IBM > documentation. I can ask AI a question that is pretty detailed and get a > meaningful response. It is not always right, but I can then discuss it and > refine it with the AI and find the correct answer. > > My attempts to use AI for mainframe related stuff have yielded 100% > wrong answers. Some have been quite convincing and taken some research > to find it's wrong, but still 100% wrong. > > Non-mainframe stuff I would say the rate is about 50%. > > If there's a lot of examples of something out there it maybe generates a > good result. But there's no actual intelligence in AI. What worries me > most is what happens when knowledge changes, e.g. if a new feature is > developed that makes old information obsolete. How does that get > incorporated in the AI model? Where does the training data come from, > and how does the model verify the reliability? > > -- > Andrew Rowley > Black Hill Software > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > > Unless otherwise stated above: > > IBM United Kingdom Limited > Registered in England and Wales with number 741598 > Registered office: Building C, IBM Hursley Office, Hursley Park Road, > Winchester, Hampshire SO21 2JN > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
