The technical writer as software process catalyst

• Authors: Kendall V. Scott
• Venue: IPCC/SIGDOC '00 Proceedings of IEEE professional communication society international professional communication conference and Proceedings of the 18th annual ACM international conference on Computer documentation: technology & teamwork
• Year: 2000

The emergence of a New Economy, fueled by business-to-business e-commerce and moves toward things like component-based development, and soon to be dominated by browser-based applications, is creating a shift in focus away from user documentation and towards what we might refer to as "systems documentation." This term encompasses includes any kind of documentation that describes the technical aspects of a software system for people like systems analysts, modelers, and software engineers, rather than users. Technical writers need certain specialized skills, such as the ability to analyze Java code, and knowledge, involving subjects like component-based development, to thrive in this new world. Tech writers should able to combine systems documentation skills with their existing communication skills in order to serve as catalysts within software development projects, in contrast to their traditionally less active and visible roles.