In general terms, documentation is any communicable material (such as text, video, audio, etc., or combinations thereof) used to explain some attributes of an object, system or procedure. It is often used to mean engineering or software documentation, which is usually paper books or computer readable files (such as HTML pages) that describe the structure and components, or on the other hand, operation, of a system/product.
A professional whose field and work is more or less exclusively to write documentation is called a documenter. Normally, documenters are trained or have a background in technical writing, along with some knowledge of the subject(s) they are documenting. Often, though, some part or all of the documentation process is done by the engineers responsible for the system/product to be documented.
By engineers, perhaps among software engineers in particular, documentation is often referred to as the "boring side" of engineering, or considered a necessary evil. This is largely unavoidable since most engineers prefer building things to documenting them, and being implicit experts in what they have built, they may have little motivation in documenting their creations so that others may understand them.
More on [ Documentation ]

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history - General introductory information about what was 'Acorn Computers' and their operating system, RISC OS which is now being developed by RISC OS Ltd. [by Richard Atterer]
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!Boot and Module Database - Paul Vigay's page about the new !Boot structure, and Modules.
Meta Description: [ www.vigay.com : Search ]
Acorn Documentation - Assorted documentation for 32-bit and 8-bit machines, including Customer Services Application Notes and back issues from Acorn User magazine's Customer Hotline column.
Acorn Quiz - Test your knowledge of the platform here.
Meta Description: [ Domain name renewal and affordable web hosting packages from Network Solutions ]
Acorn/RISC OS machines - Untechnical history of Acorn machines, and an up to date look at where RISC OS machines are today.
ANT Support - Application notes - Details the URL broadcast mechanism, DNS resolver, SWI interface, MIME encoding of files, mapping between file types, and the plug-in protocol. Includes source code to example programs, list of registered URLs, compatible applications, filetypes and icons.
ARM Assembler Programming - A series of articles on assembler programming on the ARM, by Richard Murray.
Meta Description: [ Contains information on learning to program ARM assembler; while mainly concentating on the assembler built into BBC BASIC, there is coverage for APCS; common code is described with examples, utilities, applications, relocatable modules, and so on. ]
Blastzone's RISC OS Tutorial - The 3-button mouse, desktop, task manager, filer and applications are covered as well as a glossary.
Meta Description: [ RISC OS information and links. Bush Internet TV. Useful RISC OS applications. Creating Adobe PDF documents under RISC OS, Information about Acorn's RISC Operating System ]
Ccdoc - Tool that generates HTML documentations from C/C++ header files.
comp.sys.acorn FAQ List - Frequently Asked Questions (with answers) of the comp.sys.acorn.* newsgroups.
E-Format Map explanation and FAQ - The details of the E disc format, in a form that isn't overly technical, by Sergio Monesi.
Over-clocking the StrongARM SA-110 - Instructions on how to exceed 300 MHz.
Meta Description: [ Ian Hawkins website and geek blog with anime related stuff thrown in too ]
Stuart Tyrrell Developments: Parallel Ports - Document outlining how to access the parallel port on various Acorn machines.
USENET FAQs - General Acorn and RISC OS information, games FAQ, networking FAQ, and Acorn FTP and mail server archives information.
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