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Re: Economist magazine points to decline of tech writing
Subject:Re: Economist magazine points to decline of tech writing From:Jim Shaeffer <jlshaeffer -at- aol -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Sun, 4 Jan 2015 16:02:02 -0500
Computer algorithms are writing descriptions of videos and creating news briefs from the annual reports of corporations. We are well on our way to having them do what you describe. (There is no need to wait for the singularity.)
Jim Shaeffer
-----Original Message-----
From: William Sherman <bsherman77 -at- embarqmail -dot- com>
To: techwr-l <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Fri, Jan 2, 2015 5:47 pm
Subject: Re: Economist magazine points to decline of tech writing
There is an entire world of industries that the only use of computers is
their engineering, accounting, and technical publications, which are about
manual (as in work, not paper) operations that no algorithm is going to
produce as the input is from watching and asking questions, or doing it
yourself.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lin Sims" <ljsims -dot- ml -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: "Kaylin Boehme" <kaylinboehme -at- quadax -dot- com>
Cc: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2015 10:48 AM
Subject: Re: Economist magazine points to decline of tech writing
> Personally, I'm dubious that the people running the study have a good idea
> of how many industries use technical writing/communications. No matter how
> intuitive software is, there will always be a need for technical
> information, if only on how to troubleshoot it and, for large systems, how
> to administrate it and hook it into multiple systems. And that's just the
> software industry. How intuitive is it to use, say, a dremel? Or a
> front-end loader? How about flying an airplane? Prescription
> documentation?
> Electron microscopes? And so on and so forth.
>
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