Hacker News Reader

Most people I work with don't have those skilled writing that comes with open source involvement. Things like Release notes, releasing and versioning are often handled in a very sloppy way. They throw over some software or hardware and then they make some calls about how it is supposed to be used, forgetting to communicate all the caveats... Yeah you first need to set that jumper, wait 5 seconds and start the app... kind of communication.

View on HN

I'd argue that effective written communication is a skill that can be learned and taught, and a best practice that can be enforced, rather than an innate property of a given human being.

If you can write code, you can create documents that include all the necessary details for a handover—without needing to be a brilliant writer—as long as you're aware that you're required to do so.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com