Hi, everyone, It's been awhile since I've bothered anyone in the group, but I had to jump in to say "hello" and to comment about the "programming work
flow" issue that seems to have developed on this mailing list forum. Please let me preface the comments that follow with the statement that I have NEVER programmed professionally, with the single exception of needing to create a crude database program for subscribers to a land information service that we offered about 15 years ago at my job, when I worked as a civil servant. The locally networked system that we were using crashed--along with our subscriber data files--and we were forced to continue maintaining records and to send out monthly renewal notices manually, working from paper records. This was an entirely intolerable situation!! Accordingly, I decided to take the initiative and attempt to develop a very crude subscriber data base maintenance program in--believe it or not--GWBASIC, for those old enough to remember when that was still popular. ;-) Anyway, back to my point ... While developing that program--as well as another data base to keep track of my VHS video tape/DVD collection- -I discovered that it was useful to first create a main menu before writing even the first line of code. This menu served as a logical guide for creating the various program segments or modules that I would eventually need. Since the GWBASIC interpreter allowed only 60,300 KB of usable memory workspace, you had to become very creative in order to maintain a data file that could eventually grow in size to several hundred or even several thousand KB in size--far beyond GWBASIC's default workspace limit! In my case, I developed separate modules that could be chained in order to perform the various functions that I wanted the program to have. Always keeping this menu in mind as I wrote the code, I would gradually, painstakingly fashion the application to include all of this menu's options. I never found the need to write a user manual, guide, or any other documentation first, although I eventually did write one for the video database program, primarily just to see if I could do it. I never had any intention of commercially distributing any of my software. Frankly, I realized that it was not that good because of crude menus, very poor error trapping, etc. However, it was immensely satisfying for me to have even gotten as far as I did --especially having written a program that was successfully used in a professional environment for a number of years! To summarize, IMHO, I don't believe that a manual is absolutely essential, provided that you have some sort of logical diagram or--in my case menu--to follow as you proceed to develop your application and add its various features. Another point I could make is that it's far easier to change a menu if you decide to alter the program or to edit/delete/add features than it is to alter what might be pages of a user manual, especially if it includes screenshots and diagrams, as mine did. Well, there you have it, for whatever it's worth. Thanks for taking the time to read it, and thank you all for taking the time to help others like myself to navigate the sometimes windy, treacherous trails of desktop publishing and to properly employ Scribus. Regards to everyone, Bob Marma
