FAQ

A monk of the Laughing Monkey Clan created a useful and flexible toolkit which addressed a common business need. He demonstrated its virtues to the Temple masters, and soon was pleased to learn that the toolkit had been chosen as the recommended solution for all Temple applications. Yet the monk soon discovered that popularity had its perils.

“The situation is beyond frustrating,” said the monk to his fellows. “I included a dozen example programs, assembled a FAQ, created an introductory slide presentation, authored a lengthy online tutorial, meticulously commented the source code, and ensured that the API documentation is visible to developers within their IDEs. Why, then, am I pestered day and night with the most basic of questions?”

The old scribe Qi overheard. Later that day he appeared at the monk’s quarters, his arms overflowing with books, loose papers, and scrolls of many sizes. These he spilled out onto the monk’s desk.

“For many years I labored as a developer and had the same complaint as you,” said the scribe, catching an errant scroll before it rolled onto the floor. “Thus I bent my mind to discovering how to create the Perfect Document: a thing that would instantly guide my users to whatever answer was required. To do this I assembled all available wisdom on the subject, which I now share with you.”

The monk looked at the pile littering his desk. “I do not have time to sift through all this. Can you not simply tell me what I most need to know?”

“Excellent!” said the scribe. “You’re halfway done already.”