Re: What job did you have before you became a technical communicator?

Subject: Re: What job did you have before you became a technical communicator?
From: Guy <guy -at- hiskeyboard -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 22:09:13 -0800


Scott Abel wrote:

Okay, the last post in my series of probing questions... I'm writing an
article about technical communication and wanted to toss this question out
for a few responses.

If you had another career before you became a technical communicator, what
was it and why did you decide to pursue technical communication?

I spent 15 years in software development--first as an applications programmer in Fortran, then as a compiler developer and standards committee member for BASIC, then as a compiler developer and sometime standards committee member for COBOL. I found I enjoyed, and performed, the writing ABOUT programming and programming languages than I enjoyed developing programs. I was better at that writing as well.

As a writer, I have documented compilers, debuggers, binders and runtime environments, database tools, web servers, Java integrated development environments, and now APIs. At least once a week, I seem to find a bug in the code or an ambiguity or inconsistency in the specs or the code that was developed either before them or after. So, besides writing, I'm doing a certain amount of Quality Assurance.

--
Guy K. Haas
guy -at- hiskeyboard -dot- com | gkhaas -at- usa -dot- net
http://swexegete.typepad.com/GuysBlog
Software Exegete in Silicon Valley


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References:
What job did you have before you became a technical communicator?: From: Scott Abel

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