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Subject:Re: 10 Things All Technical Writers Should Do From:"Ned Bedinger" <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Sat, 13 Nov 2004 15:50:15 -0800
> > > Programming is found in all of nature -- anything that is
> > serial uses
> > > the concept --- chemical reactions, biochemical reactions, physical
> > > reactions, music, recipes. At their base, they are all
> > "programming."
> > >
> >
> >
> > You're saying that programming is a natural interaction among
> > things in nature, and is subject to, and driven by, the laws
> > of nature (physics,
> > math,...) , and therefore there wouldn't be any useful
> > distinction made by saying something like "our
> > programming/computing activities imitate nature's serial strategy?" .
> >
>
> My point was only that it's much easier to find evidence of the origin of
> "programming" if we go back farther in time than it is trying to recall
the
> first human industrial machine that used it.
>
Oh, that's different. Programming, without the software angle, must be
pretty potent. There was a scene in Contact (movie) where Jodie Foster is
gazing out on incomprehensible universe and it suddently seems very orderly,
predictable even, but off the scale in human terms. Is that like
programming in the sense you mean?
> > This interpretation --computing imitates nature-- does have
> > that telltale ring of a dogma, doesn't it?
>
> Dogma?
>
Like a comforable way of looking at things, but not grounded in practical
truths. Sort of like the dev team that has worked with the software for 18
months, and now dogmatically bel;ieves that the user interface is intuitive
and a good fit for end users.
> But I do like the
> > way it casts Nature as the SME who is deeply involved in the
> > mysteries of complexity, and leaves the Programmer
> > (indistinguishable from a Technical Writer) in the enviable
> > position of owning the task of finessing/wrestling the key
> > definitions and processes out into the light by dint of
> > effort at observation, experience, and sooner or later asking
> > the right questions, so that our programs can then imitate nature.
> >
> > D-N-A-Fa-So-I-Pro-gram-ma
> >
>
> In that universe, Newton and Einstein are technical writers; they tested
the
> software and found how it worked.
>
A bit of a leap, but yeah. Tech writers, like scientists, require a certain
amount of pith in their constitution. I think they're both far more
abstract, and probably more of an adventure than programming.
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