Page Printable

On the TechnicalMemo pattern it says, "Maintain a series of page-printable technical memoranda". To the question what exactly does "page-printable" mean? we have "It could mean PaperPort. That is having the appearance of printed on paper, but not so wasteful - displayable as a page."

This idea being specified as page-printable might be a puzzle to some, who have been immersed in traditional documentation. Of COURSE documents are page-printable! They are maintained in MS Word files using the carefully designed and maintained templates held in the corporate technical documentation system repository.

But after working in an agile team for a while a developer will learn that documentation takes many forms. As ScottAmbler notes in http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/agileDocumentation.htm, documentation doesn't have to be a "document", as long as it communicates useful information about the software between project members.

The key to understanding why the pattern would specify page-printable is to turn the idea upside down and ask "when and why would an agile project communicate and record information in a traditional document?"