The Angry Footnote

Sometimes when you are reading a technical book, do you ever notice a footnote or sentence that looks excessively grumpy?  Something along the lines of "Obviously this code sample is not meant to demonstrate every possible use of technology X".  You think - "…um, I didn't expect it to."

From my experience as an author and reviewer, these angry footnotes are a result of mounting tension between an author and tech reviewer.  When you write a book you put a lot of effort into each and every chapter, and the dozens of sometimes very critical comments that a tech reviewer adds to your Word document ends up getting pretty annoyed.

So next time you see an angry footnote that reads something like "Any reasonable person can clearly see that ..." realize that it is the tech reviewer and not you that the author is flaming.