Flashes of Panic

Two years ago, TAing a software engineering course and attempting to explain to Computer Science majoring undergraduates that yes, you still had to know how to write well even if you were a programmer, I really wish I’d been armed with my current experience.

In the past twelve months, while supposedly employed as a programmer of some sort, I’ve written over a hundred pages of RFPs, proposals, and functional specifications. I’m willing to bet I’ve written more words of copy than of code.

Just in the last week I’ve done about fifteen pages of proposals (of which about one page could be easily copied from one to the next, and even that took some editing). Looking at the six-page proposal on my screen this afternoon (which isn’t even done yet; there’s probably two more pages in it) I said out loud, “I can’t believe I used to sweat blood over three-page papers in college.”

In the discussion following that, we agreed that the projects we’ve documented most thoroughly before we started coding were the ones which have been most successful. So take that, writing-avoidant undergraduates!

Now Playing: Chewing Gum Weekend from Between 10th And 11th by The Charlatans