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There has been a lot of interesting commentary on this topic.
Let me add a contrarian string to this thread.
Why not teach open source tools? A great deal of their development has
been, and continues to be done, in the CS labs at most universities.
This would add several benefits to the education of an aspiring tech
writer.
The cost (generally free) fits even the most parsimonious budget.
Working relationships could be established between the
engineer-wannabees in the CS department and the literatti in the English
department. Perhaps a few of these would carry over into the corporate
world upon graduation. Perhaps, a bit of understanding of the technical
issues would stick with the TW-to-bees.
There are loads of projects in the open source community that need
better documentation. This could provide the aspiring TW with
meaningful, useful homework projects and benefit the open source
community at the same time.
If someone becomes proficient with the GIMP, they can easily pickup
Photoshop.
I suspect that anyone fluent in emacs and/or vi would have little
challenge with Word or Frame (other than klunkiness and the omnipresent
rodent) ;)
Just two cents from the curmudgeon -- back to the cave.
John Gilger
Senior Technical Writer
Acres Gaming, Inc.
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