Dartmouth Events

Almost every computing job requires technical writing.  Clear writing can make fair work look good, and clumsy writing can obfuscate great work.  This talk sketches some of the writing tasks that arise in a technical career, and the importance of graceful communication.  I will describe my personal transformation from a typical undergraduate technogeek who feared and loathed technical writing into aged technogeek who still fears writing but usually enjoys having written.

Jon Bentley's research interests include programming techniques, algorithm design, and the design of software tools and interfaces.  He has written over a hundred articles on a variety of topics, ranging from the theory of algorithms to software engineering.  His books include Writing Efficient Programs (1982) and Programming Pearls (2nd Edition 2000).  He received a B.S. from Stanford in 1974 and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina in 1976, then taught Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon for six years.  He joined Bell Labs Research in 1982, and retired in 2001 to join Avaya Labs Research, from which he retired in 2013. He has been a visiting faculty member at West Point and Princeton, and has been a member of teams that have shipped software tools, telephone switches, telephones and web services.  He received the Dr. Dobb’s Excellence in Programming Award in 2000.