Documentation of programming tasks as an aid to adoption of a standard

Z Standards tend to propagate slowly through the software field, as users gradually gain experience with them. One way to trace the increased experience is through the appearance of pub= Iishad documentation. Documentation provides an easy and useful guideline because the alternative way of propagating informatio~ersonal training by those who created the standard-can reach oniy a tiny fraction of affectedusers. Unfortunately, easy-to-use guides take a long time in coming. This article suggests a method for speeding up the documentation process and thus the adoption of the standard by the pubiic. The method is based on an understanding of sofiware design, and how the use of a software tool is based on its design. I propose here that adoption of a standard depends on clear, comprehensive guides for the programmm or other consumers of a standard, and that the raw materials for such guides can spring from a standard committee’s own design process. asan Standard