Holy Wars

[Steve Fouts <sfouts -at- ELLISON -dot- SC -dot- TI -dot- COM>]

A holy war is a usenet term for a bunch of folks trying to pass off their
own personal preferences as objective debate.

Technical Writers w/ degrees in Technical Communication vs. Technical
Writers w/ no degree vs. Technical Writers w/ a degree in a nonrelated
field is a holy war. Further debate of the topic is not going to
enlighten anyone, because which ever path YOU chose to get here is the
right one {THE ONE TRUE PATH!}, and YOUR books are shining gems, the
very model of precise, friendly, easy to read, and well organized
documentation, and MINE are a maze of non sequiters held together with
irrelevant statements, so there!

Certain innocuous looking questions are likely to start holy wars. Some
examples are:

``I need a home computer for dtp. Should I buy a Mac or a PC?''

``I want to write a book. What software package should I buy?''

``What's the best dictionary to buy?''

``Do you think that Wolverine's admantium claws could cut Superman's
  impenetrable skin?''

Hey, everyone with an opinion is going to give it to you free, plus point
out why everyone with a differing opinion is a drooling, braindead,
slobbering moron who shouldn't be allowed close enough to electricity
to pound out their feeble excuse for an opinion on their obviously
outdated computing machinery.

Lets let this one die for now and attack it again next time when some
unsuspecting tech whirler says, ``I want to be a tech writer. Do I need
a degree or anything?'' I can't wait. It'll be fun!

    _______________   _____
   /  ___  __/__\  \ /  / _\    Steve Fouts
  /___ \|  |  ___\  |  /  __\   sfouts -at- ellison -dot- sc -dot- ti -dot- com
 /   /  \  |      \   /      \
/_______/__|_______\_/________\ "These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper,
but _minds_ alive on the shelves."      -- Gilbert Highet