4 ms·
Okay, at Google I found that IAM abbreviates Amazon's Identity and Access Management. So, the OP has an undefined three letter acronym. Suspicions confirmed:
by graycat 11y ago
Okay, at Google I found that
IAM abbreviates Amazon's
Identity and Access Management.
So, the OP has
an undefined three letter
acronym.
Suspicions confirmed: The OP
is an example of poor
technical writing.
Why do I care? I could be
interested in Amazon Web Services
(AWS) for my startup. But so far by
a very wide margin what has
been the worst problem in my
startup? And the candidates are:
(1) Getting a clear statement of
the business idea.
(2) Inventing the crucial,
defensible, core technology.
(3) Learning the necessary programming
languages.
(4) Installing software.
(5) System backup and restore.
(6) Making sense out of
documentation about computer
software.
May I have the envelope please
(drum roll)? And the winner is,
(6) Making sense out of
documentation about computer
software.
And the judges have decided that
uniquely in the history of this
competition, this selection deserves
the Grand Prize, never before given
and to be retired on this first
award, for the widest margin of
victory ever.
No joke, guys: The poorly written
documentation,
stupid words for really simple
ideas, has cost me literally
years of my effort. No joke.
Years. No exaggeration. Did
I mention years?
At this point, "I'm reticent.
Yes, I'm reticent." Maybe
Amazon has the greatest stuff
since the discovery and
explanation of the
3 degree K background
radiation, supersonic
flight, atomic power,
the microbe theory of
disease, electric power,
mechanized agriculture,
and sex, but if Amazon
can't do a good job,
and now I insist on a very
good job, documenting their
work, which is to be
yet another layer of documentation
between me and some microprocessors,
then, no, no thanks, no way,
not a chance, not even
zip, zilch, zero.
What might it take me to
cut through bad Amazon
documentation of AWS,
hours, days, weeks,
months, years, then
from time to time,
more hours, days, or weeks,
and then as AWS evolves,
more such time? What would
I need to keep my startup
progress on track,
500 hours a day? More?
All just to cut through
badly written documentation
for simple ideas, and worse
documentation for complicated
ideas?
First test: Any cases of
undefined terms or acronyms?
Result: About three such cases,
and out'a here. Gone. Done.
Kaput. I don't know what AWS
has, but I don't need it.
Sorry, AWS, to get me and my
startup as a user/customer,
you have to up your game
by several notches. The first
thing I will look at is
the quality of the technical
writing in your documentation.
And, I have some benchmarks for
comparison from J. von Neumann,
P. Halmos, I. Herstein, W. Rudin,
L. Breiman, J. Neveu, D. Knuth.
Amazon, for now, with me, from
your example of writing here,
you lose. Don't want it.
Can't use it. Not even for free.
I'm not going to invest my
time and effort trying to
cut through your poor technical
writing. And, the next time
I look at anything from AWS,
the first undefined term
and I'm out'a here again.
Yes, I'm hyper sensitive about
bad technical writing -- couldn't
be more sensitive if my fingers
and arms were burned off. Whenever
possible, I will be avoiding any
chance of encountering bad technical
writing, ever again. Period.
Clear enough?
More generally, my view is that
bad technical writing is the
worst bottleneck for progress
in computing.
Come on, AWS, up your game.
I don't want to run a server
farm and would like you to do
that for me, but neither do I
want to cut through more
bad technical writing -- for that
work, my project is already
years over budget.
- prof_hobart 11y agoOP is writing a technical blog on AWS, primarily aimed at existing AWS users. Defining what IAM means in there is about as pointless as you needing to define what OP meant in your post.
- graycat 11y ago> primarily aimed at existing AWS users. Either that, that is, really poor business thinking, or, as I concluded, some poor technical writing. I don't believe the first.
- prof_hobart 11y agoGiven the point you're trying to make, I'm really struggling with understanding your comment. Are you saying that you don't believe the Amazon technical blog is aimed primarily at existing AWS users?
- graycat 11y agoI'm just saying that there is bad technical writing, that there's no good reason for it, and that it's darned costly. If the that OP blog post was just for existing, old AWS customers, then find, good, okay, sure, of course, but make that point clear, up front. Else, Jeff Bezos, I'm building a Web site; I've got the production quality, reasonably high capacity, scalable software written and running; HP has offered me servers initially for free; I plan, intend, and hope my Web site becomes a big thing; I should consider a cloud instead of my own server farm; AWS should be a candidate; I'm close enough now to going live that I should be looking into AWS; I read the OP to get started; I came away from that post and its poor technical writing torqued and wanting to set aside AWS even if I was offered it for free (for me to work through enough more AWS bad technical writing for my Web site would be much more costly than free, making a free service still too costly), that's a bad situation for Jeff Bezos, Amazon, AWS, and me. There's a lot of absurdly bad technical writing in computing for absurdly poor reasons with absurdly high costs. I should have been torqued decades ago; I should be torqued now, and I am. I just want better technical writing, in particular to save my time, effort, and money. For this instance, the blog just needed a common statement about "Who this information is intended for". For AWS to put out information about their services with bad writing that torques off a highly serious and experienced software developer is bad business for both AWS and me. I am just objecting to the costly bad technical writing. Simple. Should not be difficult, complicated, or controversial.