Re: Technical Documentation solutions?

Subject: Re: Technical Documentation solutions?
From: Andrew Plato <gilliankitty -at- yahoo -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 14:17:27 -0700 (PDT)


"Manley Clifford (GFD1CEM)" wrote..

> I have no desire to put tech writers out of work - believe me we have many
> many valid roles to play - but documenting code should not be one of them!

So what they hell should they be doing? Fondling fonts? Designing processes?
Obsessing over picas and points?

Companies hire writers to document stuff. Not redesign the company and build a
system so OTHER people can write. When companies hire people to develop systems
of this nature, they seek out skilled systems analysts and productivity
consultants, not technical writers.

> These kinds of ideas can lead us toward the an environment where everyone
> can and will take the time to document their work, allowing the tech writer
> to create a higher level of communications that ties all of it together.

Riiiiiiiight. In other words, writers are free to avoid the "dirty work" of
actually having to learn anything technical and are free to obsess over the "fun
work" of style guides, processes, fonts and other virtually inconsequential
nonsense.

> I agree that a strong and capable tech writer must be involved in designing
> these systems, but look at what the writer will be free to do when he/she/it
> doesn't have to spend their/its day distributing the result of minor code
> changes out through all the various documents.

That's what writers do. Write, manage, and maintain documents. This new "sit
around and fondle other people's content all day" job is not writing.

Andrew Plato

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