Re: Making a Corporate Style Guide

At 12:04 PM 11/15/01 , Complex wrote:
>I would like to make some clear and hard rules for how my coworkers
>should capitalize, bold, and otherwise format command names, product
>names, and other special pieces of text. Also, for how they should
>format different kinds of lists and text in general. My goal is for the
>company to be able to maintain a consistent style even without me.
>(Hey, I'm aware of my own mortality. :-)


That's called the Billy Gates Syndrome. Careful, I hear there is no cure.
If you find yourself feeling the urge to bounce on a trampoline - do the
planet a favor and build a rubber room instead.

Seriously though . . . 

Take a que from Mr. Gates:

Templates and Wizards. In MS Office you have to make an effort to ~not~
have every page look the same !!

I'm sure there are some *excellent* reference sources on Style Guides that
will be popping up on the list any second. But remember, they all have one
vital flaw: Education. Your staff has to be trained. That takes time and money.

If you don't have an ongoing ~motovated~ training (continuing ed) program
for the staff - you're most likely going to have as much luck teaching
monkeys to fly as use a book to actually determine your individual . . .
look and feel and then teach it to a group of people. That takes time and
money.

Of course, that's my not so humble opinion ;->.

On the other hand - templates - and something clean like PERL and/or PHP
for wizards and you're rocking with all your tees dotted and eyes crossed .
. . well, you know what I mean. Across any wire or OS, to boot.

Virtually any "tool" (editor) will allow you to lock a template . . . right?

All you need is a hired gun to write some scripts, do a little magic dance
around the server - and you're alllllllll Styled and Profiled.

HTH,
Fuzzy.
______________________________________________________________
Captain F.M. O'Lary
ctfuzzy(at)canopy.net
"Common sense is that layer of prejudices which we acquire before we are
sixteen." - Albert Einstein
------------------------------------------------------------------

HTML: hwg-basics mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA