It's true you don't need to know 'everything' about HTML to build a simple web page. However, HTML knowledge helps at least in that it allows you to: * Make an informed choice of scripting tools * Deal meaningfully with networkers when hosting issues occur. I could add that for such online tools as forms complete ignorance does not mean you can't build one given the right tool. However, you're less distracted by superfluities if you've already built a form with plain vanilla open source CGI. -----Original Message----- From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Geoffrey Marnell Sent: Wednesday, 10 September 2008 5:03 PM To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: atw: Re: XML - a requirement for a TechWriter looking forwork? Hi austechies. Tony is right when he says that XML is already pretty much everywhere. But this is not the point. The current thread began with a question as to whether XML is "becoming part of a requirement for a Tech Writer", and the simple answer is that, despite the apparent ubiquity of XML, you no more need to know XML to be technical writer than you need to know HTML to produce a web page. And this is not likely to change in the near future. A parallel: there are scores of applications out there that run on C# and .NET, but that doesn't mean that we need to know C# and .NET to use them; likewise, there are scores of applications out there that use XML, but the users don't need to know XML to use them. To take one of Tony's examples: journalists use XML to produce your daily newspaper, but journalists don't need to know XML to produce their stories. All the XML is behind the scenes. Tony also mentioned GMAIL. It seems like everyone on the planet has a GMAIL account...but probably 99.9% of GMAIL users happily get by without a clue as to what XML is or does. In a later email, Tony criticises me for saying that you don't need XML to convert Visio files to Illustrator files; but again this is missing the point of this thread. There may well be XML code sitting behind the format-conversion routines, but the user DOESN'T NEED TO KNOW XML to convert a Visio file to an Illustrator file. So to go back to Nikki's question: no, you don't need to know about XML to work as a technical writer (despite XML code sitting behind all modern authoring tools). In the near future, you will probably enhance your employment prospects if you know something about structured authoring (for Tony is right in saying that more and more documentation will be structure-based not format-based, but certainly not all). But structured authoring and XML are not the same thing. And even if, perchance, we have to interact directly with XML (because of a poor choice of authoring tools) then we would (as some do now) interact with it through an interface that takes away the necessity and pain of learning XML itself...exactly as we now build HTML pages using an interface application (such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage) that saves us the trouble of having to learn anything about HTML. (Yes, Peter Martin, it's good to know some HTML if you encounter a bug in a Dreamweaver file; but, crikey, you surely can't expect me to learn C# to help me when I encounter a bug in, say, MYOB Accounting Plus. A nice to have, surely; but not a necessity. Put another way, and keeping to the thrust of this thread, you wouldn't say that knowing C# is becoming part of a requirement for a bookkeeper on the grounds that there are bugs in bookkeeping software.) So, Nikki, just as a web designer can get away without knowing anything about CSS inheritance, a technical writer can, and will, be able to get away without needing to know what, say, #PCDATA means. Cheers Geoffrey Marnell Principal Consultant Abelard Consulting Pty Ltd T: (+61 3) 9596 3456 F: (+61 3) 9596 3625 W: http://www.abelard.com.au -----Original Message----- From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Anthony Self Sent: Wednesday, 10 September 2008 3:41 PM To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: atw: Re: XML - a requirement for a TechWriter looking forwork? Dear Nikki and all When Dave Halls advised technical writers to "learn XML", he was giving good counsel. Not wanting to put words in his mouth, his more explicit advice might have been to "learn the basics and principles of XML so you can understand what it all means". XML is bigger than Ben Hur. It is a bigger initiative than the World Wide Web. XML is a set of building blocks for the categorisation, storage and retrieval of all human knowledge. It is impossible to learn everything there is to know about XML, because of the length and breadth of the technology. XML has already affected many aspects of our personal and business lives. Journalists use it to produce your newspaper. iPods use it for podcasting. Amazon uses it to help you choose books to buy. Bloggers use it. GMail uses it to provide a richer Web mail client. RoboHelp uses it to store its project file settings. OpenOffice uses it to store office documents in an international standard format. Scholars use it to understand Sumerian literature. The Bureau of Stats uses it to distribute census data. And so on. In the documentation field, authoring tools are built around XML. If your tool is not XML-based, it's out-of-date, and probably about to be redundant. Frame is XML-based. Flare is XML-based. Word 2007 is XML-based. OpenOffice is XML-based. AuthorIt is XML-based. Firefox is XML-based. It is possible that you can stumble on, perhaps even using Word or Frame, and be blissfully unaware of what XML is. Perhaps you can continue to make a living for many years to come without understanding one jot of XML. But Dave Halls' talk and advice related to professional development. If you want to progress in your profession, you must understand XML and its impacts. There are more relevant changes to our working mode just around the corner. Moving from style-based authoring to structured authoring is perhaps the biggest change. The return on investment of structured authoring using DITA (another XML-based technology/methodology) is potentially enormous. At the moment, the tools haven't quite caught up to the technology, so it is a little early for many organisations to move to this approach, but in a year or two, everyone will be moving in that direction. You won't understand DITA and structured authoring unless you understand (the basics and principles of) XML. Because XML is so big, it's best to start now, rather than try to catch on when it's too late! Finally, I have had the pleasure of working on a number of DITA projects, as well as teaching it, and it is an extremely rewarding thing to work with as a writer. Tony Self >>> "Nikki Ward" <Nikki.Ward@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 10/09/08 9:32 AM >>> Hi all, If you have some time, I would like some feedback on this presentation supplied to the QLD Tech Writers group. I just thought it rather interesting that "Learn XML" is becoming part of a requirement for a Tech Writer who is looking for work. ... ----- Swinburne University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code: 00111D NOTICE This e-mail and any attachments are confidential and intended only for the use of the addressee. They may contain information that is privileged or protected by copyright. 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