[matthewfcarlson]

I agreed with you (see my comment I wrote before I saw yours). I’m hoping there is some thought put in on when this particular approach is used. I had a boss who asked for detailed docs and said he needed it to include pictures. He did not really need the pictures but it was very useful when communicating. Was it slightly deceitful? Yes. But it was also quite useful.

[digging]

> He did not really need the pictures but it was very useful when communicating

"Need" is a pretty amorphous word. He may not have needed pictures to understand the docs at all, but he could be said to have needed pictures to understand the docs in the timeframe he had available. Calling it deceitful feels untrue to me. I would only say it's deceitful if the intended use of the pictures was something other than understanding, like he wanted to steal them for another purpose.