And one of the engineers just sent me a command sequence for identifying encrypted modules. Then asked me if his syntax was okay? And even weirder, I said "well, if you're identifying a Verilog variable, it ought to use this parameter and syntax like this, but hey, I could be wrong because I'm just the tech writer..." But it strikes me that an engineer shouldn't be asking ME about syntax on something he's giving me to document. (Though I am sometimes known to write my own code samples, or tell engineers that changes in certain areas will also affect some other part of the code, so maybe this follows...)
What bothers me is this nagging suspicion that I might be a rare thing, a technically savvy tech writer. I do know that, over the years, I've been surprised at how few of my cohorts can do the things I do. Which might explain how I've functioned as a part-time sysadmin, QA engineer, laser printer technician, writer of Unix macro programs, and various other tech feats, besides "just" writing manuals (often as not by actually using the product).
