interviewed by nickjong
Nick asked me these questions a while back, but I never got the
email notification and I didn't notice. If anyone else thinks I'm
ignoring questions, please let me know.
1. How has the field of software documentation evolved during your career?
I've seen changes in several areas:
Writers as user advocates: More and more, writers do not just record what's currently true but also advocate for what ought to be true and isn't. Whether it's the intuitiveness of a user interface, the consistency of an API, the fonts and colors used in the GUI, or something else, writers are getting the background to have these clues and getting the ability to make their comments heard. Maybe not everywhere and in all areas, but I see it more than I did twenty years ago. And I certainly do it a lot more than I used to, though of course that comes with advancing in one's career, too. I think the rise of fields like HCI and the increasing tendency for interdisciplinary education help.
Specialization: This might be a function of my own specialization, but I think more writers are focusing in particular areas, such as API documentation. API documentation is about as old as APIs, of course, but I think the percentage of it that's written by reluctant programmers instead of full-time technical writers is going down. And it's not just about APIs; I think it's happening in other domains where real domain knowledge is required to write the documentation at all (because the users of the software are electrical engineers or physicists or surgeons, not people who bought your product at CompUSA).
Tools: We've come a long way since MS Word. It's the 21st century; if you aren't doing semantic markup (XML, these days) you're way behind the curve. Relatedly, employers don't care so much about mastery of specific tools (Word, FrameMaker, whatever) any more; it's much more important that you understand structural principles and be able to adapt the tools you have to the tasks at hand.
Online documentation: Writing online help, or even an HTML doc set, is rather different from writing a manual intended for print publication. Twenty years ago maybe you'd occasionally adapt your print manual for use in online help; now online considerations are at the forefront.
Related to that: Documentation is more mix-and-match and single-source than it used to be. The field is moving toward smaller reusable chunks of documentation and away from omnibus manuals that no one reads anyway. If you are producing, say, both manuals and help, you're probably trying to assemble the same bits, with maybe some different connective tissue. When releases are every few months instead of every year or two, there's really no alternative.
Now, all that said, there is a lot of legacy documentation (and legacy code) out there, and there are a lot of writers who are still working in that area. I have mostly worked for small, agile companies; I know it's not this way everywhere. But I think even the large, print-centric companies with tens of thousands of pages of manuals to maintain are moving in these directions. (This is the cue for everyone reading this who disagrees to speak up. :-) )
2. How did growing up in the SCA community in particular influence who you are now? Would you have grown into more or less the same person in a different social environment, such as your current congregation?
I should clarify that I found the SCA when I was 17. There are people who were born into it; I'm not one of them. That said, though, I was pretty immature when I hit college (where I found the SCA), and I think I "grew up" socially during my time in the SCA.
I think one of the things I learned in the SCA is that individual achievement is good but so is supporting the community, and you need a mix of both. In high school (and before) I valued individual achievement but it was competitive. I didn't give a hoot about the community (and they didn't give a hoot about me, which I think came first but does it matter?). In the SCA I learned to reach as high as I could and to support others who were doing the same thing. The SCA is participatory, and you have to help out.
I also learned about "paying it forward" in the SCA. In the early days I mooched rides from people, went to sewing circles where people with clues made garb for me, took home the leftover food, and so on. I couldn't pay those people back (I had nothing to offer them), but later as circumstances changed I was the one giving the rides and sharing the food and so on (ok, not giving sewing -- I suck at that :-) ) to the next wave of people. This was new to me. Later on I also became one of the people who ran the events and held offices, again as part of that "we're all in this together" mentality. (But hey, also because it was a chance to do cool things -- back to that individual-achievement thing.)
It's kind of hard to separate college influence from early-SCA influence in some areas. I certainly learned that there were a lot of people who were much better at almost anything I did than I was and that that was ok. I learned that there were things I really was good at and I didn't have to show off or compete.
The SCA is pretty unstructurd, and this may be a big difference from other organizations (like congregations). You can plot your own course, pretty much. If a congregation had filled the niche occupied by the SCA, I might have come out with a more structured view of the world and how organizations "should" run. You know -- move up through the youth group, from there into leading (well-specified) volunteer efforts, into the young-adult group and/or sisterhood, onto the board, and so on. I don't know if that environment would have nurtured creativity, individuality, and spontenaety the way the SCA did for me.
If I had not become involved in any communities, things would probably have been very different -- more reading, TV-watching, and hacking, and less interacting with diverse people, at the very least. I find it difficult to speculate about that path.
I think in a lot of ways I would have turned out about the same -- by the age of 40 or so -- whether the influential community was the SCA, a congregation, or something else. But the paths probably would have been very different, as different groups emphasize different features. And no matter what you do, I think you pretty much spend the years from about 15 to 30 screwing up a lot of things while learning how to be a civilized human being. A community that's more tolerant of those growing pains helps.
I note in passing that what appears to be the single biggest adult-onset influence in the kind of person I am now occurred from my mid-30s through now.
3. If you could become a pen pal of any person from any time, with whom would you correspond? (To avoid paradox, assume that the person exists in a parallel universe, so you could even correspond with yourself from the past without causing reality to implode.)
I'm going to assume there's also a translator module in place, since "any time" would be somewhat limited otherwise.
This is a tough one. There are lots of people (some historic, some not) of whom I'd like to ask some particular questions, but the opportunity for an ongoing correspondence (and, perhaps, friendship) presents new possibilities.
After considering and rejecting several possibilities, I thought of Moshe (Moses). That would be a real opportunity! But then I had a better idea: I'd like to correspond with Miriam, Moshe's sister. She was there all along and had encounters with God but was not the leader; she probably had an interesting perspective on events. And in this fictional world where I get to correspond with people in the past, I can always ask her "would you ask your brother about something for me?". But I think the perspective of a woman close to the events would be interesting to this modern woman, and we could compare notes about interpretations in her time and mine. (I perceive Miriam as kind of an uppity woman, which would make conversations fun.)
A close runner-up, in a completely different vein: my maternal grandmother, who worked in a factory during WWII, raised my mother largely alone, was obviously smart (if not educated), would give you the shirt off her back if she thought you needed it, and was a neat woman who died way too young (when I was in college).
4. Alternatively, what do you do if the genie allows you to undo after seeing the consequences? Specifically, you may once instantly revert reality to a backup copy of the moment before he would have contacted you. Does your answer change if you could remember your experiences from the forked reality?
Tell my opthamologist to use whatever surgical techniques are relevant and fix my vision. The big risk, of course, is that tinkering makes matters worse, and I'm pretty risk-averse with something as important as basic physical function. So in practice I'll probably never screw with it, at least until the studies are done that follow people 20 years after.
If I could keep the memories while reverting reality, I'm going to rules-lawyer the scenario and plan to reset from the start. Assuming that this doesn't cost me those years off my lifespan, I'm going to go to rabbinic school (going into serious debt in the process), acquire all the knowledge I can soak up there, and then pop back to here and now. :-) ("Go to rabbinic school" has some significant prerequisites, of course. I'd do those first.)
5. How would you characterize the stories that you most enjoy reading or watching? How have these desiderata changed over time?
I enjoy reading/watching non-passive three-dimensional characters in interesting situations. I don't have to like the characters, though that helps, but I have to be able to see them as real people. Part of what makes Babylon 5 so good is that there are so many shades of gray.
Bonus points if the text or dialogue includes clever exchanges like what Sorkin wrote for West Wing when he was in charge of it.
I think over time specific genre has become less important. When I was a teenager I read a lot of wish-fulfillment sword-and-sorcery fantasy; my tests have matured, of course, but also broadened. In addition to what I said about characters, I can also really get into an interesting premise -- science, alternate history, or whatever. Ringworld is fundamentally cool no matter who the characters are. Ditto Niven's stories that explore social scenarios.
I guess I enjoy stories about real people (who might be humans, aliens, or something else) that let me stretch my brain.
Here's how this works:
1. How has the field of software documentation evolved during your career?
I've seen changes in several areas:
Writers as user advocates: More and more, writers do not just record what's currently true but also advocate for what ought to be true and isn't. Whether it's the intuitiveness of a user interface, the consistency of an API, the fonts and colors used in the GUI, or something else, writers are getting the background to have these clues and getting the ability to make their comments heard. Maybe not everywhere and in all areas, but I see it more than I did twenty years ago. And I certainly do it a lot more than I used to, though of course that comes with advancing in one's career, too. I think the rise of fields like HCI and the increasing tendency for interdisciplinary education help.
Specialization: This might be a function of my own specialization, but I think more writers are focusing in particular areas, such as API documentation. API documentation is about as old as APIs, of course, but I think the percentage of it that's written by reluctant programmers instead of full-time technical writers is going down. And it's not just about APIs; I think it's happening in other domains where real domain knowledge is required to write the documentation at all (because the users of the software are electrical engineers or physicists or surgeons, not people who bought your product at CompUSA).
Tools: We've come a long way since MS Word. It's the 21st century; if you aren't doing semantic markup (XML, these days) you're way behind the curve. Relatedly, employers don't care so much about mastery of specific tools (Word, FrameMaker, whatever) any more; it's much more important that you understand structural principles and be able to adapt the tools you have to the tasks at hand.
Online documentation: Writing online help, or even an HTML doc set, is rather different from writing a manual intended for print publication. Twenty years ago maybe you'd occasionally adapt your print manual for use in online help; now online considerations are at the forefront.
Related to that: Documentation is more mix-and-match and single-source than it used to be. The field is moving toward smaller reusable chunks of documentation and away from omnibus manuals that no one reads anyway. If you are producing, say, both manuals and help, you're probably trying to assemble the same bits, with maybe some different connective tissue. When releases are every few months instead of every year or two, there's really no alternative.
Now, all that said, there is a lot of legacy documentation (and legacy code) out there, and there are a lot of writers who are still working in that area. I have mostly worked for small, agile companies; I know it's not this way everywhere. But I think even the large, print-centric companies with tens of thousands of pages of manuals to maintain are moving in these directions. (This is the cue for everyone reading this who disagrees to speak up. :-) )
2. How did growing up in the SCA community in particular influence who you are now? Would you have grown into more or less the same person in a different social environment, such as your current congregation?
I should clarify that I found the SCA when I was 17. There are people who were born into it; I'm not one of them. That said, though, I was pretty immature when I hit college (where I found the SCA), and I think I "grew up" socially during my time in the SCA.
I think one of the things I learned in the SCA is that individual achievement is good but so is supporting the community, and you need a mix of both. In high school (and before) I valued individual achievement but it was competitive. I didn't give a hoot about the community (and they didn't give a hoot about me, which I think came first but does it matter?). In the SCA I learned to reach as high as I could and to support others who were doing the same thing. The SCA is participatory, and you have to help out.
I also learned about "paying it forward" in the SCA. In the early days I mooched rides from people, went to sewing circles where people with clues made garb for me, took home the leftover food, and so on. I couldn't pay those people back (I had nothing to offer them), but later as circumstances changed I was the one giving the rides and sharing the food and so on (ok, not giving sewing -- I suck at that :-) ) to the next wave of people. This was new to me. Later on I also became one of the people who ran the events and held offices, again as part of that "we're all in this together" mentality. (But hey, also because it was a chance to do cool things -- back to that individual-achievement thing.)
It's kind of hard to separate college influence from early-SCA influence in some areas. I certainly learned that there were a lot of people who were much better at almost anything I did than I was and that that was ok. I learned that there were things I really was good at and I didn't have to show off or compete.
The SCA is pretty unstructurd, and this may be a big difference from other organizations (like congregations). You can plot your own course, pretty much. If a congregation had filled the niche occupied by the SCA, I might have come out with a more structured view of the world and how organizations "should" run. You know -- move up through the youth group, from there into leading (well-specified) volunteer efforts, into the young-adult group and/or sisterhood, onto the board, and so on. I don't know if that environment would have nurtured creativity, individuality, and spontenaety the way the SCA did for me.
If I had not become involved in any communities, things would probably have been very different -- more reading, TV-watching, and hacking, and less interacting with diverse people, at the very least. I find it difficult to speculate about that path.
I think in a lot of ways I would have turned out about the same -- by the age of 40 or so -- whether the influential community was the SCA, a congregation, or something else. But the paths probably would have been very different, as different groups emphasize different features. And no matter what you do, I think you pretty much spend the years from about 15 to 30 screwing up a lot of things while learning how to be a civilized human being. A community that's more tolerant of those growing pains helps.
I note in passing that what appears to be the single biggest adult-onset influence in the kind of person I am now occurred from my mid-30s through now.
3. If you could become a pen pal of any person from any time, with whom would you correspond? (To avoid paradox, assume that the person exists in a parallel universe, so you could even correspond with yourself from the past without causing reality to implode.)
I'm going to assume there's also a translator module in place, since "any time" would be somewhat limited otherwise.
This is a tough one. There are lots of people (some historic, some not) of whom I'd like to ask some particular questions, but the opportunity for an ongoing correspondence (and, perhaps, friendship) presents new possibilities.
After considering and rejecting several possibilities, I thought of Moshe (Moses). That would be a real opportunity! But then I had a better idea: I'd like to correspond with Miriam, Moshe's sister. She was there all along and had encounters with God but was not the leader; she probably had an interesting perspective on events. And in this fictional world where I get to correspond with people in the past, I can always ask her "would you ask your brother about something for me?". But I think the perspective of a woman close to the events would be interesting to this modern woman, and we could compare notes about interpretations in her time and mine. (I perceive Miriam as kind of an uppity woman, which would make conversations fun.)
A close runner-up, in a completely different vein: my maternal grandmother, who worked in a factory during WWII, raised my mother largely alone, was obviously smart (if not educated), would give you the shirt off her back if she thought you needed it, and was a neat woman who died way too young (when I was in college).
4. Alternatively, what do you do if the genie allows you to undo after seeing the consequences? Specifically, you may once instantly revert reality to a backup copy of the moment before he would have contacted you. Does your answer change if you could remember your experiences from the forked reality?
Tell my opthamologist to use whatever surgical techniques are relevant and fix my vision. The big risk, of course, is that tinkering makes matters worse, and I'm pretty risk-averse with something as important as basic physical function. So in practice I'll probably never screw with it, at least until the studies are done that follow people 20 years after.
If I could keep the memories while reverting reality, I'm going to rules-lawyer the scenario and plan to reset from the start. Assuming that this doesn't cost me those years off my lifespan, I'm going to go to rabbinic school (going into serious debt in the process), acquire all the knowledge I can soak up there, and then pop back to here and now. :-) ("Go to rabbinic school" has some significant prerequisites, of course. I'd do those first.)
5. How would you characterize the stories that you most enjoy reading or watching? How have these desiderata changed over time?
I enjoy reading/watching non-passive three-dimensional characters in interesting situations. I don't have to like the characters, though that helps, but I have to be able to see them as real people. Part of what makes Babylon 5 so good is that there are so many shades of gray.
Bonus points if the text or dialogue includes clever exchanges like what Sorkin wrote for West Wing when he was in charge of it.
I think over time specific genre has become less important. When I was a teenager I read a lot of wish-fulfillment sword-and-sorcery fantasy; my tests have matured, of course, but also broadened. In addition to what I said about characters, I can also really get into an interesting premise -- science, alternate history, or whatever. Ringworld is fundamentally cool no matter who the characters are. Ditto Niven's stories that explore social scenarios.
I guess I enjoy stories about real people (who might be humans, aliens, or something else) that let me stretch my brain.
Here's how this works:
- If you want to be interviewed, leave a comment saying so.
- I will respond, asking you five questions.
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- You'll include this explanation.
- You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.