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Terrible documentation that is written assuming far too much prior knowledge.
I'm pretty technologically literate but just don't have a lot of experience with Linux, in the last year of trying properly to switch over the most frustrating part is trying to fix problems or follow peoples "guides" to various things. There is plenty of information out there for sure but when I have to keep looking up a string of things to try and get to my desired end result then the original documentation I'm trying to follow is not adequate.
I can only imagine what it might be like for users who are less inclined to learn about this stuff and just want to use it / solve a problem.
I think that a lot can be said for well written documentation that describes necessary processes to get a desired result in a way that everyone can follow regardless of their prior experience or knowledge.
When I first got into tech, one of the first things I noticed was how deep the knowledge base was, layers upon layers of knowledge dependencies, and how poorly tech people explained things.
I remember learning about how to write clear, easy to follow manuals in IT classes when I was 13 in the late 90s. What ever happened to that skill, did it die along with physical manuals?
I think just the phrase "IT classes when I was 13" is enough to convey just how far outside the norm your experience was.
I have a CS degree from a top-10 university, and they taught me approximately fuck-all about writing good documentation. There was only one course on technical writing, and I don't remember it being very rigorous or difficult.
If anything, what few writing requirements we had in the rest of the curriculum were typically more similar to academic research papers than user manuals.
Must have. I sure as hell didn't get that training in school a couple years ago. My teachers sure as hell didn't either
It did. The thick manuals of the 90s needed to actually document things.