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As Much Teacher as Writer

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I spent over a decade as a software development engineer in test before I formally changed my job discipline to that of programming writer. Many friends and family have asked or guessed why I made this change and most of the guesses tend to land in the "something easier than testing" bucket but that's not the case at all. I actually moved from test to content is because I discovered a true passion for teaching, especially for teaching processes and I've always had a knack for organizing data and information into a coherent flow.

In my daily work life, I've always been a writer in one way or another. I would be the person who would write out test processes, or would help design test architectures. I wrote and taught several internal classes when I decided I could do a better job than the current versions being offered. Then in the midst of the first real push toward software security and security testing, after I had sat yet another junior tester down and explained the what SQL injection was, I told my husband that I could write a book on security testing. He challenged me and the idea too hold in the guise of a dare. I wrote the book and sold it, despite the market theory there was no room for books on testing. It sold and still sells a bit. 

I count that book, Testing Code Security, as a turning point in my decision to change job disciplines and it taught me several things:

  • I learned that I really did love teaching others what I knew and did. I loved researching things I didn't know as much about and putting that information together as well. Heck, I had to love it to spend nearly 5 full months working on this book every night at home, after dinner and after my youngest son was in bed. 
  • I learned that writing an instructional book is a huge amount of gathering and organizing raw data, developing a structure and a fair number of false starts before a good balance is struck and the subject matter flows into a coherent whole.
  • I learned that, while I loved testing, I loved the ability to talk directly to my users in the instructions I wrote and to feel like I'm trying to solve their problems even more.
Above all, I realized that my prior ideas of what a technical writer was and what the job entailed was incorrect, at least in my industry. 
It was much more about teaching and finding ways to get concepts and information across than it ever was about word choices, writing tone or any cute turns of phrase.
In my new role as a programming writer, supporting all currently shipping Windows Embedded products, I take that as my prime directive. Teach first.

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