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Subject:Re. Nonprogrammers need not apply From:Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> Date:Thu, 27 Jul 1995 12:49:22 LCL
Renee Cornellison asked (concerning a job posting that required a
knowledge of C++) if techwhirling includes checking code.
In many cases, yes it does. Two examples:
1. My first job (with IBM) had me copyediting sample database commands
for a user guide. In that case, all I had to do was look for typos
(misspelled commands) and formatting inconsistences (e.g., all lines
end with a particular form of punctuation, all text must contain a
begin and and end tag, etc.). Understanding the database language
would have made things go faster and would have let fewer errors
through.
2. If you're documenting software (as I did once, briefly) you need to
ensure (oops... make sure) that the examples in the manual are
actually workable; not having the time to test each one by compiling
it, at least I could recognize when punctuation (brackets, semicolons,
etc.) was missing or in the wrong place. Knowing the language helped
greatly.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one of
our reports, it don't represent FERIC's opinion.
