Corroborating the importance of good writing skills...
My 2 cents on why it is important to develop good writing skills over your career...
Proceeding from the commonly accepted norm that good communication is a good skill to have,
very few of us do little to sustain a conscious effort in improving this skill.
For example, would Linux have succeeded if Linus Torvalds hadn't evangelized it? As brilliant a hacker as he is, it was Linus's ability to convey his ideas in written English via email and mailing lists that made Linux attract a worldwide brigade of volunteers.
Have you heard of the latest fad, Extreme Programming? Well, without getting into what I think about XP, the reason you've heard of it is because it is being promoted by people who are very gifted writers and speakers.
Even on the small scale, when you look at any programming organization, the programmers with the most power and influence are the ones who can write and speak in English clearly, convincingly, and comfortably. Also it helps to be tall, but you can't do anything about that ;)
As Joel says, The difference between a tolerable programmer and a great programmer is not how many programming languages they know, and it's not whether they prefer Python or Java. It's whether they can communicate their ideas. By persuading other people, they get leverage. By writing clear comments and technical specs, they let other programmers understand their code, which means other programmers can use and work with their code instead of rewriting it. Absent this, their code is worthless. By writing clear technical documentation for end users, they allow people to figure out what their code is supposed to do, which is the only way those users can see the value in their code. There's a lot of wonderful, useful code buried on sourceforge somewhere that nobody uses because it was created by programmers who don't write very well (or don't write at all), and so nobody knows what they've done and their brilliant code languishes.
If you can write well, wherever you get hired, you'll soon find that you're getting asked to write the specifications and that means you're already leveraging your influence and getting noticed by management.
There are a quite a few thousand garage game developers who write games for the PC and the mobiles by the hundreds in a year, and sell them to game resellers by the dozen and make a killing. But they're still garage developers. They dont think big. Bill Gates had a bigger vision. Why dont they think of having everyone in the world to play their game at least once?
If you're still studying, look for the classes which are "writing intensive," meaning, you have to write an awful lot to pass them. Look for those classes and take them! Seek out classes in any field that have weekly or daily written assignments.
The best things about the effort to read and write well is that it helps you form an opinion on things that you never knew about.
It helps you appreciate the nuances of the different writing styles of different people, and understand what differenciates mundane text book style of writing from someone who's able to convince a reader subtly and make an impression at a sub-conscious level. Moreover, dont ask what it does to your creative energy and the range of ideas you can come out with. I, for example, started with asking, why the Indian voting machines do not come with a 'None' button. But the one that takes the cake is that it automatically improves your verbal communication and negotiating skills as well.
Start a journal or weblog. Write what you feel strongly about. Write about your ideas, even if it's about what you think the corner store near your office can do to subvert efforts from the sharks to throw them out of business. Write about what your company can do to save costs, be it about the paper in the photocopying machine.
The more you write, the easier it will be, and the easier it is to write, the more you'll write, in a virtuous circle. The more you keep writing and the more successful you are in that sustained effort, some day someone small will notice you and take a stand either on your side or the highway! Either way, you've made a mark. You've scored your first goal. Now, go celebrate!
Each one develops an area of comfort, what many refer to as 'getting into their zone'. Figure out what yours is, and keep writing about issues related to your zone. The next logical step is to market yourself in various ways to journals and magazines which deal in that area. Who knows, it may be a start to a monthly article from the 'Fish Guru'. Then, your scope of influence and your audience increase like a geometric progression.
Enough said, try your first article, and expect it to be shabby, grammatically incorrect, illogical and incoherent to an onlooker. The key here then is to understand your objective and your audience and edit, edit and edit.
Whoever said 2 cents cant get you anything these days! ;>)
Cheers.....
Note: Content in some parts above and inspiration in whole borrowed from Joel Spolsky.
Proceeding from the commonly accepted norm that good communication is a good skill to have,
very few of us do little to sustain a conscious effort in improving this skill.
For example, would Linux have succeeded if Linus Torvalds hadn't evangelized it? As brilliant a hacker as he is, it was Linus's ability to convey his ideas in written English via email and mailing lists that made Linux attract a worldwide brigade of volunteers.
Have you heard of the latest fad, Extreme Programming? Well, without getting into what I think about XP, the reason you've heard of it is because it is being promoted by people who are very gifted writers and speakers.
Even on the small scale, when you look at any programming organization, the programmers with the most power and influence are the ones who can write and speak in English clearly, convincingly, and comfortably. Also it helps to be tall, but you can't do anything about that ;)
As Joel says, The difference between a tolerable programmer and a great programmer is not how many programming languages they know, and it's not whether they prefer Python or Java. It's whether they can communicate their ideas. By persuading other people, they get leverage. By writing clear comments and technical specs, they let other programmers understand their code, which means other programmers can use and work with their code instead of rewriting it. Absent this, their code is worthless. By writing clear technical documentation for end users, they allow people to figure out what their code is supposed to do, which is the only way those users can see the value in their code. There's a lot of wonderful, useful code buried on sourceforge somewhere that nobody uses because it was created by programmers who don't write very well (or don't write at all), and so nobody knows what they've done and their brilliant code languishes.
If you can write well, wherever you get hired, you'll soon find that you're getting asked to write the specifications and that means you're already leveraging your influence and getting noticed by management.
There are a quite a few thousand garage game developers who write games for the PC and the mobiles by the hundreds in a year, and sell them to game resellers by the dozen and make a killing. But they're still garage developers. They dont think big. Bill Gates had a bigger vision. Why dont they think of having everyone in the world to play their game at least once?
If you're still studying, look for the classes which are "writing intensive," meaning, you have to write an awful lot to pass them. Look for those classes and take them! Seek out classes in any field that have weekly or daily written assignments.
The best things about the effort to read and write well is that it helps you form an opinion on things that you never knew about.
It helps you appreciate the nuances of the different writing styles of different people, and understand what differenciates mundane text book style of writing from someone who's able to convince a reader subtly and make an impression at a sub-conscious level. Moreover, dont ask what it does to your creative energy and the range of ideas you can come out with. I, for example, started with asking, why the Indian voting machines do not come with a 'None' button. But the one that takes the cake is that it automatically improves your verbal communication and negotiating skills as well.
Start a journal or weblog. Write what you feel strongly about. Write about your ideas, even if it's about what you think the corner store near your office can do to subvert efforts from the sharks to throw them out of business. Write about what your company can do to save costs, be it about the paper in the photocopying machine.
The more you write, the easier it will be, and the easier it is to write, the more you'll write, in a virtuous circle. The more you keep writing and the more successful you are in that sustained effort, some day someone small will notice you and take a stand either on your side or the highway! Either way, you've made a mark. You've scored your first goal. Now, go celebrate!
Each one develops an area of comfort, what many refer to as 'getting into their zone'. Figure out what yours is, and keep writing about issues related to your zone. The next logical step is to market yourself in various ways to journals and magazines which deal in that area. Who knows, it may be a start to a monthly article from the 'Fish Guru'. Then, your scope of influence and your audience increase like a geometric progression.
Enough said, try your first article, and expect it to be shabby, grammatically incorrect, illogical and incoherent to an onlooker. The key here then is to understand your objective and your audience and edit, edit and edit.
Whoever said 2 cents cant get you anything these days! ;>)
Cheers.....
Note: Content in some parts above and inspiration in whole borrowed from Joel Spolsky.
posted by Antimatter at 3:40 AM
3 comments
