TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
I agree with the suggestions endorsing Perl, with a couple of caveats - -
while it's great for text processing (for which it was designed), a lot of
things can be done with simpler Unix programming tools - sed and awk. So
you might want to investigate those (and shell programming in general)
first. A book or two should get you going, no expensive classes needed.
Perl could be seen as a "dead end," however, since it is a language unto
itself. With shell programming, you get your feet wet with a little C, then
you have the foundation for C++. And C++, as I understand it, gives you a
good background for learning Java. Perl as far as I know doesn't provide as
much of a learning path to other languages.
You also might want to investigate the world of web programming, of which
Perl is definitely a part - in addition, the various web server languages
are probably worth learning - ASP, PHP, JSP, and XML as others have
mentioned. I look for classes like "Java for the Web," as opposed to a full
blown Java course. You don't need all the details, unless you are really
doing a career switch.
Software applications are increasingly becoming web-enabled, so development
environments are using a lot of those technologies. For a technical writer,
it's probably more of a natural move to begin by exploring web-related
programming technologies first.
................................................................
Michael Collier, Technical Writer Office: N636
Information Systems Laboratory http://isl.arlut.utexas.edu/
Applied Research Laboratories: The University of Texas at Austin
Voice: 512-835-3408 e-mail: mcollier -at- arlut -dot- utexas -dot- edu
................................................................
*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available now at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com
TECH*COMM 2001 Conference, July 15-18 in Washington, DC
The Help Technology Conference, August 21-24 in Boston, MA
Details and online registration at http://www.SolutionsEvents.com
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
