Invisible wrote:
> Heh. The hard part is figuring out how to take a big heap of knowledge 
> and structure it into something coherant with a logical order to is that 
> somebody else might even be able to follow. ;-)

Yes, that's the hard part. :-)  It's one of the problems with open source 
software that's doing something totally new, where there's two or three 
people who know how it works inside and out, and they don't know how to 
explain it to someone who doesn't already know what they're talking about.

It's a tremendously useful skill to have: the ability to explain to grandma 
(or your boss) what she needs to know about the technology. (That's probably 
one reason I use too many analogies - I find they work well with 
non-technical people.)

It's also one of the important skills you learn from a PhD.

I'll second the notion that if you can sit down and write something like you 
post here, and just churn it out, do so. Getting the ideas down is good.

After that, if you want to go further, sit down and make an outline (as in 
"table of contents" type outline). Break it down until the structure has an 
entry for each idea, where "each idea" is covered in a paragraph or two. 
Then read the outline and make sure someone else could understand it on the 
first read through. Then you just fill in the outline.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The NFL should go international. I'd pay to
   see the Detroit Lions vs the Roman Catholics.

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