Not along ago, I received a call from a colleague who teaches technical writing, among other things, in the department and university which gave our field John Mitchell, one of the founders of the Society for Technical Communication and an early definer of our field. My colleague wanted to know how my former department would value, in terms of tenure and promotion, a book on Boston Harbor nautical matters. His department did not value it at all, and unfortunately, neither would have mine. It is this experience, which is too often common to technical communication scholars, that prompts the question in this article's title.

Writing in the computer industry most likely provides the greatest challenges for technical communicators. The technology changes rapidly, and there are few established models of how communication products should be written. There are even fewer established models of how communication departments should be run. This article looks at the frustrations, challenges, and rewards of writing in such an environment.

The debate as to whether heuristics or prescription provides the best approach to teaching technical writing is still largely unresolved. When heuristics are used as process, as problem-solving devices, and when prescription is used as a product-producing device, a useful synthesis of the two approaches occurs. This article presents such a synthesis of heuristics and prescription; it concludes with a short annotated bibliography on heuristics and prescription which can be used by the technical writing teacher and the technical writer.