Eschew the Project Glossary

basedir : the absolute path of the project’s basedir (as set with the basedir attribute of <project>).

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Wear your adversary down by tantalising, pretending to give information where there is really none. Disguise your vacuous statements sufficiently so the reader will blame himself for failing to understand.

The reader asks himself, if I am trying to compile the com.mindprod.holidays package, is basedir C:\, C:\com\ , J:\com\mindprod\ or J:\com\mindprod\holidays\ ? You see why you should never use concrete examples? They are too clear. If you are forced to use them, complain that they sound childish and unprofessional. Complain that examples make it look as if that is all the product can do. You want people to appreciate fully every possible variation from the get go. You are not trying to inform, but impress! After all, no academic would be caught dead giving an example. People only respect that which is too abstract to grasp easily.

That’s a lot to remember. You will do just fine if all you do when writing documentation is maintain the attitude that people who don’t already know this jargon are stupid fools who don’t deserve to understand.