I've never understood writing as a specialization without any subject matter knowledge. For example Journalism degrees are often the first step in becoming a writer for a newspaper. The journalist ends up in the 'business' or 'politics' team even with no experience in these fields.
My naive suggestion for improvement would be to develop technical writing skills in addition to another degree or field. Want to write about science? Then do a science degree as well as a writing course.
Same with documenting software. Isn't it better to have knowledge about software when writing documentation? I'm not talking advanced CS here, I mean basics.
I think the article supports my view. The author hit a limit at his workplace because he specialised in writing without a deeper knowledge of what he was writing about. Instead of gaining that knowlege prior to working he had to learn on the job, which is fine but not ideal if it's not necessary.
My naive suggestion for improvement would be to develop technical writing skills in addition to another degree or field. Want to write about science? Then do a science degree as well as a writing course.
Same with documenting software. Isn't it better to have knowledge about software when writing documentation? I'm not talking advanced CS here, I mean basics.
I think the article supports my view. The author hit a limit at his workplace because he specialised in writing without a deeper knowledge of what he was writing about. Instead of gaining that knowlege prior to working he had to learn on the job, which is fine but not ideal if it's not necessary.