Re: Programming Languages for Technical Communication

Subject: Re: Programming Languages for Technical Communication
From: Barb Ostapina <Barb -dot- Ostapina -at- METROMAIL -dot- COM>
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:35:53 -0500

Michael Wing wrote:

<<BIG snip>>
I also am a prognosticator that the edges between writing duties and
programming skills are blurring.
<<


This seems true to me as well. I can offer two examples in my own situation
where I am the entire tech writing department for my division (well, I take
that back... I was able to bring in a consultant to help on a project...
hurray).

I developed a document for one of our tech support groups that sales people
were to use to request batch jobs for pre-sale trials of one of our
products. It was helpful, but some of the sales people found it annoying to
submit the form while they were on the road, which was often. So, I
re-created the form in Lotus Notes (database and views). Let me tell you...
that was a challenge. At the time I was fairly new to the company and could
barely figure out how to use the Notes email system (I know, I must have
been living under a rock). So, I got a Lotus Notes developers book and
looked at some existing databases and did what I needed to do.

I would hardly call myself a Lotus Notes developer (I'm sure I'd need the
book at my side if I ever tried that again), but it's amazing what one can
do if one is determined. I can only assume that the basic programming class
I took a zillion years ago helped. (Actually, ever having figured out what
JCL was probably did the most to make me software literate -- how can they
call something Job Control Language and then insist that it's not a
language??)

The second example is going on as we speak. My consultant is developing an
Access relational database that will become one of the significant
components of the system documentation for one of our products. This is an
old system that was never properly documented. To do it right would take
years, which we don't have. So she met with one of the lead developers and
between them they figured out that program overviews along with some
mechanism to easily identify the multitude of interrelationships among the
cycles, schedules, jobs, programs, files, copybooks... in the system would
be immensely useful. So, she's becoming an Access developer. (I'm sure it's
not hurting her any that she once wrote COBOL code.)

--B
barb -dot- ostapina -at- metromail -dot- com
in gray and windy Lombard (near Chicago), IL




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