Kathy Walrath's Blog

Want to Write for a Living?

Writing for developers is a rewarding job if you're interested in technology and enjoy playing with words. You're constantly learning, you get to practice the craft of writing, and you can make a real difference for developers.

Ever since I graduated from college with a CS degree, I've had writing jobs. All but one of them took advantage of my technical background, but I've never officially worked as a software engineer. Until now.

I've accepted a position with the Swing team. In a way, it's not a big change. I'll still go to Swing meetings and work with the JavaDesktop community. However, I'll be transitioning away from work on The Java Tutorial and other J2SE-related doc, and into bug fixing and feature work for the Swing libraries. Although it's hard to leave the Tutorial and its great team of writers, ten years on one project is a very long time, and I'm looking forward to trying something new.

If you're interested in working with the J2SE doc team, now's your chance! You can submit your resume for this technical writer position, as described at the bottom of the position description's page. If hired, you won't necessarily work on the Tutorial — that's up to you, the Tutorial team, and the J2SE doc manager — but whatever you do, you'll have the chance to learn about interesting technologies, hone your writing, and make a difference in the professional lives of developers. Plus, hey, it's a paying job!

Comments

• Congrats on the new position! Do you know yet which area of Swing you'll be specializing in? Here's to hoping it's another resource on the text APIs. :)

  Posted by: ajsutton on November 15, 2004 at 11:14 PM

• Thanks! I don't know yet exactly what area I'll specialize in, but it's safe to say it won't be text. (We're throwing lots of bodies at text — just not mine.)

  Posted by: walrath on November 15, 2004 at 11:24 PM

• Yeah, I've noticed a lot of work being done in the text area actually. It's coming together slowly. Good luck with whatever it is you wind up with.

  Posted by: ajsutton on November 16, 2004 at 12:38 AM

• Hello, Although I don't have that expertise to work in for The Java Tutorial, I think I can explain things in a better way and can help in writing the docs. Infact, I am interested in Java Swing Development, but if you can please suggest me the person to contact, I have some suggestions like using of a round buttons and such sort of things, please if you can, give me an email id of the person. And yes, I am always ready to work with Sun Microsystems, or anything related with Java :)

  Posted by: serioushari on November 16, 2004 at 03:35 AM

• Kathy,

  Is there any chance that Sun will rethink the way they do documentation? An enormous amount of information is provided in various forums and other on-line resources. I really think that Sun should leverage the community and have people that do a little writing, but mostly edit the writing of others and provide links to external material. I think JavaLobby is on the right track with their JDocs.

  I would like to see chat, annotation, and a micro-IDE integrated into the Java Tutorial. As it stands now, however, the Java Tutorial is pretty much the gold standard of on-line tutorials. Good work and good luck.
  
  - Curt

  Posted by: coxcu on November 16, 2004 at 06:56 AM

• serioushari, I'd recommend participating in the Swing forum (where if you have good ideas, you'll be noticed) and searching the Sun job listings.

  Posted by: walrath on November 16, 2004 at 08:13 AM

• Thanks, Curt! I've forwarded your message to the J2SE doc manager and the writer who's responsible for the javadoc tool, in hopes that they'll respond. But the short answer is that they are rethinking things, and this is a great time to propose ideas — especially those that leverage outside tools and people.

  Posted by: walrath on November 16, 2004 at 08:21 AM

• Congratulations Kathy! (And probably even more to Jeff, since
  he gets a great new member of the Swing team).
  Tutorial--, Swing++, I guess it evens out as long as you
  stay in the Java universe :)

  -- Howard

  Posted by: hrosen on November 16, 2004 at 01:45 PM

• Thanks, Howard! (Some background for anyone who's read this far: Howard used to manage Jeff, who's my new manager.)

  Posted by: walrath on November 16, 2004 at 01:56 PM

• Hi Kathy!

  That's not fair. We have open reqs too and you didn't ask us! :-) :-)

  Congrats to the eng team, and condolences to the pubs team...

  - eduard/o

  Posted by: pelegri on November 16, 2004 at 03:36 PM

• You're too kind, Eduardo! All right, my head's swelled enough. It's time to stop readin' and get crackin'. Get those resumes in! Pubs needs a new writer!

  Posted by: walrath on November 16, 2004 at 04:02 PM

• I just wanted to let you know how much your writing has helped me in my java education. It is a very valuable source of information. I liked it so much that I bought printed versions of them also.

  Thank you for helping us for so many years and good luck in your new position. I am pretty sure that we will benefit from your expertise in some other ways.

  With best wishes
  Zia Partovi

  Posted by: zpartovi on December 04, 2004 at 03:33 PM

• Thanks, Zia! (Everyone else: See, you can make a difference as a writer. Get those resumes in!)

  Posted by: walrath on December 04, 2004 at 06:27 PM

• Congratulations!
  And i got a question,i wang to be good at Swing.What's more i am considerring of organizing a group to build a open source project.Lacking of resource,i just browse the forums all around .All i have are the books of JFC I AWT and JFC II Swing,essentially,source code of Swing.i have inspiration and determintion for the purpose.Would you please give me some advice?
  Thanks a lot.
  -------------G.T.M.

  Posted by: _gtm_ on December 13, 2004 at 10:08 PM

• Thanks! Let's see... One way of improving your skills might be
  to join one of the
  JavaDesktop projects. At the least, you can look at the source code for some of the projects; the trick is finding one with source code you want to emulate.
  The Project Help Wanted Ads page is a good place to look for a project to join. For example, it can help you find projects that need GUI skills or Swing skills.

  
  Courses and conferences can be good, of course.
  And javadesktop.org and clientjava.com are two places that try to point to good technical articles. But, as in anything, the very best approach is probably to join a project where a top-notch, nice Swing programmer is available to mentor you, and then work as many hours as possible on that project.

  Posted by: walrath on December 14, 2004 at 03:53 PM

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