Ask HN: How terrible is technical writing?
- a not insignificant part of the job consists of running after the developers and letting them explain to you how their software works or at least to furnish you with further information or explanations. Also, you have to cultivate a sense of when to ask them, when to interrupt their work, and who to ask for what.
- developers don't care too much about the technical documentation and view it rather as a nuisance.
- in the general hierarchy you are quite low, which is probably understandable given the nature of the task. But you are also somewhat of an outsider among a majority of people who have studied computer science.
- only a fraction of the work consists of autonomous tasks. A large part of the time you operate at the intersection of variable often quickly changing circumstances which you have to structure by almost constant interaction.
- in the world of standardization, established stylesheets, translation-friendly texts there is not much room for creative solutions.
How accurate are these vague generalizations?