A drawn-out story about NTDS and context
A cow-orker was having trouble with some software called an NTDS driver. It was a piece of software which allowed one hardware device to perform input and output (or "I/O") to another device. I don't recall exactly what NTDS stands for - I may never have known.
He didn't know much about NTDS either, and was struggling for days trying to decrypt an error message. It would pop up intermittently during I/O and complain "Error: EI data without I packet."
Almost as a gesture of support, I left a post-it note on his desk:
Old Macdonald had a faulty NTDS driver.
EI erred I/O.
I thought it was the funniest thing I had come up with since.. well... since the croissant gag. Clearly, I was still stressed.
My cow-orker read the note without a smile. looked at me like I was an idiot, sighed and went back to debugging.
My beautifully crafted joke had failed pique the humour of the one person in the world who would get it; the one person who would not require a long and clumsy set-up to prepare for the punch-line. I was disheartened.
Now, if I try to recycle at least some humour from this wasted punchline, I need to give so much context - explaining about what an NTDS driver is, what "I/O" stands and about croissants - that a quick one-liner becomes a drawn-out story.
I tell this story to explain why it is difficult to write without an understanding of your audience. It is hard enough to get an idea across to someone with similar background knowledge. When you can't assume that knowledge, you can either ignore your readers who have too little context or spend far too much time setting the context.
Sometimes you are left to choose between bewildered readers and bored readers? Tough call!
He didn't know much about NTDS either, and was struggling for days trying to decrypt an error message. It would pop up intermittently during I/O and complain "Error: EI data without I packet."
Almost as a gesture of support, I left a post-it note on his desk:
Old Macdonald had a faulty NTDS driver.
EI erred I/O.
I thought it was the funniest thing I had come up with since.. well... since the croissant gag. Clearly, I was still stressed.
My cow-orker read the note without a smile. looked at me like I was an idiot, sighed and went back to debugging.
My beautifully crafted joke had failed pique the humour of the one person in the world who would get it; the one person who would not require a long and clumsy set-up to prepare for the punch-line. I was disheartened.
Now, if I try to recycle at least some humour from this wasted punchline, I need to give so much context - explaining about what an NTDS driver is, what "I/O" stands and about croissants - that a quick one-liner becomes a drawn-out story.
I tell this story to explain why it is difficult to write without an understanding of your audience. It is hard enough to get an idea across to someone with similar background knowledge. When you can't assume that knowledge, you can either ignore your readers who have too little context or spend far too much time setting the context.
Sometimes you are left to choose between bewildered readers and bored readers? Tough call!