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Subject:Re: Technical development From:Chuck Banks <chuck -at- ASL -dot- DL -dot- NEC -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 20 Sep 1993 15:55:33 CDT
Jane,
I'll assume you are starting cold with little or no computer
programming or system level software experience.
Start with some research. Check your Sunday classifieds,
the Boston Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication Job
Bank, Computer and Operating System user groups, the trade press
(industry newspapers and magazines) for indicators of what computers
and software systems are most in use in the Boston area. Check
with the student/career counselors at colleges and universities in
the area.
Start with the introductory courses (Intro to UNIX, Intro to
MS-DOS, Intro to MacIntosh System 7, Intro to X Windows/Motif) for
the computer operating systems prevalent in the Boston area. They
will give you a good feel for the jargon. If you have time, take
a junior college course. The instructor is likely to be someone
previously or currently employed in the area and knowledgeable
about at least some systems in use.
The trade press may lead you to believe that EVERYONE has
abandoned their mainframe and supermini computers and bought LANs.
"T'ain't so, Magee!" The larger central processors survive as
parts of Local Area Networks (LANs) as servers, if nothing else.
Many financial institutions are still wedded to their old
reliable central computer and are still buying or developing
applications for them. So get a nodding acquaintance with the
larger systems, just in case.
Should you take a programming course? Not necessarily.
You can learn a great deal about coding conventions on the job
and from programming texts. Whether or not you should take a
course depends on the job market in Boston. If most of the jobs
for Technical Communicators require knowledge of particular
programming languages, it might be a good idea to take at least
an introductory course. If there are many languages in use in
Boston, any one course or no course might serve since employers
may not expect detailed language knowledge.
What you need to know will become clear when you do the
research and talk to those in the know.
And use the public library system! Spend some time
with their catalog system and find out what texts and magazines
are available. And research the companies in Boston. Find
out who makes what software packages or is involved in what typess
of software (e.g., banking, manufacturing, Computer Aided Software
Engineering -- CASE, communications).
I hope this helps.
Good Luck!
Chuck Banks
--
__ ________ ______
|\\ | || // Chuck Banks
| \\ | ||_______ || Senior Technical Writer
| \\ | || || NEC America, Inc.
| \\| \\______ \\______ E-Mail: chuck -at- asl -dot- dl -dot- nec -dot- com
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