[HN Gopher] Why engineers should focus on writing
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Why engineers should focus on writing
Author : skwee357
Score : 9 points
Date : 2023-07-09 21:35 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.yieldcode.blog)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.yieldcode.blog)
| maxverse wrote:
| If you're looking for a distraction-free writing tool, I've been
| building and using a minimal blogging platform called
| Tinylogger[1]. My focus is on a totally clean interface
| (everything goes away while you write), and I recently shipped a
| no-judgement mode that focuses you only on the line you're
| writing, fading everything else out - perfect for first drafts
| and morning pages. I've been blogging a lot more this way.
|
| [1] www.tinylogger.com
| [deleted]
| daxfohl wrote:
| Pictures are worth a thousand words. Writing is reasonably easy
| and it's hard to get much better than you already are. If I had
| it to do over again, I'd spend a lot of time learning drawing and
| diagramming tools. They still intimidate me, and I'm always blown
| away by people who can whip up a diagram showing exactly what
| they are thinking.
| tekla wrote:
| > Writing is reasonably easy
|
| Incorrect. My professors trashed students reports (that groups
| had spent literally 800+ man hours on) because they were all
| awfully written. Writing well is incredibly hard, especially on
| technical topics.
|
| Diagrams for many engineering topics is worthless since
| diagrams are unable to actually express complex topics very
| well.
| skwee357 wrote:
| I agree with you! The art of making great images and diagrams,
| is required as well. But I consider it the next step, after
| improving your writing skills.
| tilne wrote:
| > writing is reasonably easy and it's hard to get much better
| than you already are
|
| This is the complete opposite of my personal experience. (I do
| agree with your point about the value of diagramming. But I see
| it more as a subset of the foundation of writing: clearly
| expressing thoughts in an easily readable medium
| wsostt wrote:
| I would add that good writing is required for all career
| advancement.
|
| Senior engineers or architects may do more design than coding and
| the design needs to be conveyed likely as writing and hopefully a
| couple diagrams.
|
| Managers absolutely need to be good writers to communicate
| effectively, advocate for their team, and tell the story of the
| team's work.
|
| If you're an engineer and want to have a higher level job than
| you have now, getting better at writing is only going to help.
| I'm not saying it's a MUST because I'm sure there's some
| outliers, but it won't hurt.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| If you want to get ahead, writing will not get you very far.
| I'm not saying that the skill isn't important, but it's down
| toward the middle of the list in terms of importance. Most
| managers are average to terrible writers. And yet at the same
| time, they invariably tend to be better than average verbal
| communicators, because being able to connect on a social level
| is vastly more important than being able to connect through
| prose. You don't have to trust me on this, just look at how
| political elections are won. Candidates don't submit long
| articles to the press that support their positions, they get up
| on a stage and attempt to connect with crowds on an emotional
| level. It's no different in business. Senior management wants
| to have managers who can verbally motivate their employees with
| a short chat and a pat on the back instead of some essay.
| crabkin wrote:
| I'd be pretty surprised if good verbal communicators aren't
| usually good writers.
| skwee357 wrote:
| I agree with you. I consider writing as one of the MOST
| important skills in life.
|
| However, being an engineer, and writing in my engineering blog,
| I targeted mainly engineers.
|
| But yeah, everyone will benefit from good writing skills.
| electrondood wrote:
| Writing is also a very useful tool for guiding/directing the
| conversation.
|
| Create a document that lays out the approach you want, share it,
| and _then_ have a meeting about it where people can react to it.
| If you get everyone together and try to decide something
| democratically, it 's a shit show. Documents allow you to put a
| stake in the ground, and depending on how much colleagues care,
| what you write is 95% of what ends up in the product.
| tekla wrote:
| Any engineer that went to college should have taken multiple
| technical writing classes. Engineering school vigorously demands
| that you learn how to write properly and accurately, something
| that seems lost on "web engineers"
| skwee357 wrote:
| The problem with school, or college, is that they tell you, you
| need to write. They don't explain to you why you need to write,
| and what are the benefits of writing.
|
| That's why most design reviews are very painful to read, and
| understand. That's why company wiki becomes a pile of useless
| information.
| tekla wrote:
| > They don't explain to you why you need to write, and what
| are the benefits of writing.
|
| Then thats a bad school or program. It was drilled into us
| nonstop that lives depend on writing good reports. You do not
| want to be the person blamed because your report was vague or
| misleading. Bad writing kills people.
| thfuran wrote:
| It really doesn't. I got an engineering degree without taking a
| single technical writing course. Not counting short physics lab
| write-ups, I think I wrote a single technical paper during
| undergrad.
| tekla wrote:
| You didn't do a capstone project? My capstone was half
| engineering, half technical report writing. The engineering
| section was considered worthless unless you wrote a
| acceptable report. Nobody cares about what you built unless
| you can write a proper report about it.
|
| How is that possible?
| thfuran wrote:
| Yeah, that project was the one paper. But there was
| essentially no focus on technical writing in the course.
| But even if it were half on technical writing, half of a
| single semester is hardly a major focus for a degree
| program. It's rather underemphasized.
| robertoandred wrote:
| Anyone who went to college should have taken multiple classes
| that require you to write. Myopic "engineering schools" miss
| the point of higher learning.
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