Tech Writers
Amy Hoy, over at (24)slash7, has been blogging about Ruby on Rails for about as long as I’ve known the framework existed.†She has an introductory article on the MVC pattern that you should go read right now if you haven’t already. Even if you know MVC inside and out, you’ll probably find that Amy presents the material much better than you can. At least, that was my reaction. That link is my gift to anyone who’s ever been asked “What is MVC?” and responded “It’s pretty simple, actually. MVC is … uh, well, um…”
In her latest post, Amy is talking about whether women make better tech writers than men. She says no, sex and gender don’t come into it, and she backs that up with some good arguments. I agree with her, but that’s not what inspired me to write this entry. This was:
And after yet some more time I realized I didn’t have to settle for being David Pogue with boobs, I could be even better.
Well, that line and the fact that I heartily endorse pretty much every tech writer she mentions in that entry. I can honestly say that I can’t think of a single living person who’s name I’d rather see in the by-line of an article I am about to read than Andy Ihnatko’s. [Do me a favour and imagine that sentence was less tortured and more complimentary.]
I do take issue with one thing she said, though. Cryptonomicon wasn’t a very good novel. The characters felt like two-dimensional caricatures who were there simply to push the plot along and allow Stephenson to digress into the topics he actually wanted to write about. In the realm of tech-heavy novels I much prefer, say, Tom Clancy’s The Hunt For Red October where out main characters all have history and back story and motivation. (Ramius feels the Soviet Union was ultimately responsible for the death of his wife and that détente requires that nether side get ahead of the other in an arms race. Jack Ryan was basically an academic who found himself dropped into the middle of a very dangerous, very tense situation and told to prevent a war — all he really wanted to do was get home to his wife and daughter and get back to writing. It wasn’t until the later books that Ryan became a super hero and Harrison Ford had to take over the role.) However, that’s just the way I remember the books. Before I’d trust myself to write more than one paragraph on the topic I would have to read them again.
But, I digress. Go, read Amy’s articles and take a look at her cheat sheets: they’re very handy. If you can get there, she’s speaking in my home town of Vancouver next month at the Canada on Rails YVR06 conference. I, sadly, will be in Saskatchewan at that time. (Don’t worry, everyone else had to look up where it is, too.)
†Saying things like that makes me feel old, which is weird because the span of time is fourteen months at most. On the other hand, Amy talks about reading MacAddict when she was twelve and that does make me feel old. After all, I was sixteen when they started publishing…
