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.”
