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Subject:Re: why are we doing this From:Bruce Boyer <bboyer -at- OBJECTSHARE -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 2 Dec 1998 10:07:56 -0800
For me, it was our second child, when my wife announced she wasn't going
to work anymore for a while. Not that either of us worked all that much,
both being graduate students and part-time instructors. As a student of
philosophy and theology, my employment options were neither obvious,
plentiful, nor lucrative. Talking to the placement office, and having had a
past interest in computers, it was suggested that I look into technical
writing. Within a couple of months I landed a position, based largely on
my ignorance (I was expected to take a naive user's perspective).
My philosophical training was heavily in logic. This seems to have given
me much the same mindset as a programmer, so I've been pretty successful
both relating to their work and writing for other programmers. I don't love
computers, however (actually, I liked them better before I had to deal with
them regularly), so I manage to maintain a sympathy for user's who similarly
are not captivated.
Writing papers on deadline has been useful. Needing to be able to scope
work so that a reasonable degree of completion can be attained within
the time and information available has been important.
An ability to sleep with my eyes open while being apparently attentive, a
skill developed in graduate seminars, has been helpful during interminable
meetings.