TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Programming vs. Technical Writing From:Lisa Meng <ELMENG -at- TEEXNET -dot- TAMU -dot- EDU> Date:Thu, 13 Aug 1998 10:28:22 -0500
>>> "J. Fraser" <tekwrite -at- ISTAR -dot- CA> 08/12/98 11:17am >>>
<snip>
Turns out, I don't like programming and I realized that I really don't
have the appropriate talent for it. I watched other people write code
that could do in 20 lines what my code did in a 100 lines!
<snip>
The comments that J. Fraser made about programming attracted my
attention, because I've found the same thing to be true when I program.
I've been writing a series of short, web-based courses on JavaScript,
which means I've had to learn some programming. I've noticed that the
SME, (a "real" programmer), can write a program to accomplish a
specific task in a few lines of code; when I write a program to
accomplish the same task, my code is always longer.
This makes me think that technical writing and programming approach
information in entirely different ways. When I write, I tend to present
information step by step; the last thing I want to do is to skip a step and
lose my reader. When the programmer writes code, he seems to look for
ways to skip steps, or integrate several steps into one. His main concern
is making his code short. Has anyone else noticed the same thing? - LM
