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Subject:Re: who "blank" From:"Huber, Mike" <mrhuber -at- SOFTWARE -dot- ROCKWELL -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 4 Jan 1999 15:55:14 -0500
> From: Scott Miller [mailto:smiller -at- PORTAL -dot- COM]
> > A technical writer is a person who _________________________.
> writes something that can only be interpreted one way.
No, that's an assembly-language programmer.
Humans read yer, stuff, they take it a lot of different ways. Doesn't matter
how unambiguous you write. Nature of the reader. Ya can slow it down, but ya
can't stop it.
Heck, even compilers read the same code different ways. C is too high-level
to be read only one way, English is hopeless.
Besides, it isn't definitive. A technical document that could be reasonably
be read three different ways, all of them correct, is better than one that
can be read only one way and that one wrong. And consider some of the more
heavy-handed fiction: Atlas Shrugged isn't, by design, open to a lot of
different interpretations, but it sure ain't tech writing.
---
Office:
mike -dot- huber -at- software -dot- rockwell -dot- com
Home:
nax -at- execpc -dot- com
