It is always as Twain said, "Sorry for the long letter, I didn't have time to write a short one." The essential advice of all writing: the simplest word choice

It is always as Twain said, "Sorry for the long letter, I didn't have time to write a short one." The essential advice of all writing: the simplest word choice, the fewest words, is doubly true for technical documentation. Unfortunately only 1% of tech writers seem to follow it. And as you say, there never seems to be enough time left to document. This is why: a) the doc should be the spec b) write the doc first. There, that's the concise version of your manifesto :-)