Yesterday, I had the idea that I should try working as a technical writer as a way to realign my past with my future - I don't want the stress of debugging things every day, and I've done this writing informally and always thought, "I wish I could spend more time getting this right but I can't justify it."
An hour and a half later, I had started conversation with the maintainer of an open source project, speccing out a portfolio project with him. It's a bit early to tell, but treating the writing as my only goal, rather than as a supplement to coding work, is doing things to my perspective...there's definitely a need for the humanities in technical environments. A really great piece of writing can do more than instruct clearly, it can motivate creative uses, put the techniques into perspective and lead people away from dangerous ideas. As well, in-depth writing about technology is a great way to review its real utility and add discipline to development that has gone astray.
And there is so much technology that would benefit from doing this better. I think it might be the proper antidote to cargo culting.
An hour and a half later, I had started conversation with the maintainer of an open source project, speccing out a portfolio project with him. It's a bit early to tell, but treating the writing as my only goal, rather than as a supplement to coding work, is doing things to my perspective...there's definitely a need for the humanities in technical environments. A really great piece of writing can do more than instruct clearly, it can motivate creative uses, put the techniques into perspective and lead people away from dangerous ideas. As well, in-depth writing about technology is a great way to review its real utility and add discipline to development that has gone astray.
And there is so much technology that would benefit from doing this better. I think it might be the proper antidote to cargo culting.