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>>[matt:]Why would the STC have sessions that addressed technical topics?
>>[bruce:] ...Because no specialty conference approaches technical subjects from the particular viewpoint of writers.
Any why should they? Technical Writers should strive to understand the technology the same way engineers do. They just need to take their understanding and do something different with it.
I am wondering what you think the "particular viewpoint of writers" is, then. Do we need simple overviews of network topologies? A high-level introduction to method reflection? A round-table discussion of the merits of .Net?
No. We need the details; we need to get at the guts of the technologies, pull them out, play with them, and then fry 'em up with some extra virgin oil. We need to sit down and bang on some code or some hardware or some widgets until we "get" it and then turn what we learned into instructions that our customers can follow.
Half-baked seminars on quasi-technical topics aren't going to attract me to an STC conference any more than a seminar on technical communication at JavaOne would attract one of you.
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