RE: The Problem with STC

Subject: RE: The Problem with STC
From: "Michael West" <mike -dot- west -at- oz -dot- quest -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 13:39:33 +1100


Alan Miller wrote:

> Michael West has taken exception with Andrew
> Plato's views with regard to the relative importance
> of technical knowledge and writing skills. The answer
> is very simple (to my mind): Mr. Plato is correct Mr.
> West is incorrect. There, that was easy. :-{)


If you look closely at what I took exception to,
you'll see that I was responding to Mr Plato's
assertion that one thing is "infinitely more important"
than another thing.

He's already admitted the hyperbole and qualified it to
my satisfaction, so I'm not going to pursue that line of
debate any further.

My own experience (and this no-one else can argue with)
is that it is much harder to find good technical writers
than it is to find good programmers. My own experience
has been that there is more unusable documentation
written by technical experts than there is written by
expert communicators. This is because technical expertise
does not REQUIRE good communication skills, but an expert
communicator MUST learn enough about a subject area to
communicate it effectively.

Apparently Mr Miller's experience has been different, and about
all that can be said about that is that the world is an amazing
place.

Regarding Mr Miller's interest in a survey on this question,
I don't know where I'd fit because I have been a professional
programmer, a data center manager, a telecommunications
analyst, and a business analyst, although my academic
background was non-technical. I've also been an actor, a
musician, a poet, a language instructor, and a cryptanalyst.

I've never been a cowboy or a fire chief, but hey, I've still got
a few years left.

--
Michael West
Melbourne, Australia




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