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RE: Damnit Jim, I'm a Writer, not a Programmer II: The Wrath of K ahn
Subject:RE: Damnit Jim, I'm a Writer, not a Programmer II: The Wrath of K ahn From:Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- jci -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 6 Jul 2001 16:35:54 -0500
>I understand very general programming concepts, and
>could probably recognize some code (and they understand basic rules of
>grammar and sentence construction), but my job is as much explaining the
>why as the how.
Bingo! Reading code is actually quite a bit easier than people think. If
it's done by a competent professional programmer, it'll seem like reading a
very abbreviated form of english. I suspect the tech writer who failed to
get the job failed, not because he couldn't read code, but because he
wouldn't try. I'd have declined to hire him myself, were I in a position
to. Prima donnas are a pain to work with.
Try an experiment sometime. Next time you're in a bookstore, go pick up one
of those dreaded programming books and flip it open to a random page near
the middle, and the next code fragment you encounter, try to figure out
what it does. I'll bet more than half of you will decode a significant
portion of it, without prior knowledge even of the language it's written
in.
Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224
Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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In God we trust; all others must provide data.
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Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.
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