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My ex- is a nurse and used to work at Man's Greatest Hospital in Boston.
She rued every July because all the new interns, freshly minted medical
degrees in hand, would come into her ER assuming they knew everything
because they were, after all, at MGH. She said her job for the first
several months (until they got a clue or bought a vowel) was to keep
them from killing their patients and teaching them to listen to the
nurses who, though not as educated, were after all the ones who knew the
most about disease, emergencies, and snotty interns.
I think the parallel is obvious. We know a heck of a lot more about the
entire system than most programmers (they often only care about their
little portion), and we know our users. Lincoln said "War is too
important to leave to the generals." Well, I maintain that system design
is too important to leave to the programmers.
My 2¢ worth.
John Garison
Principal Technical Writer
Integrated Development Enterprise, Inc.
150 Baker Avenue Extension
Concord MA 01742-2174
> I am wondering if anyone can tell me the current state of the
relationship
> between writers and the esteemed wizards, engineers, in industry. I
ask
because
> I work with a smart young woman, graduating soon with a degree in
Computer
> Engineering. Yesterday she ranted on Tech Writers as "useless,
overpaid,
and
> not altogether capable" of understanding what she and her peers do.
Hey... get her a subscription to this list... We will straighten her out
right proper. I ain't got no big, old fancy dancey degree, or nuttin
like
that thar, but I dun learned stuff right proper; Lordy, Lordy, you bet I
did.
Seriously, let me let her in on a big secret. I know a few senior
engineers
that are overpaid and often quite useless, and believe that new computer
engineering graduates are also over paid and useless.
