Where Is the Next Trend in Publishing?

Where Is the Next Trend in Publishing?

Close-up photo of person looking through binoculars.Last week I shared advice about unplanning your career, gleaned from David Hayes at the EAC conference in Toronto. The week before that, we heard from Daniel Polowin who said, “The best way of adapting to change is by participating in it.”

I had a longer chat with Daniel about just how to spot change and part of it. Read what he had to say, today, in my Canadian, Eh? column at Copyediting.com.

Link to my Canadian, Eh? column on Copyediting.com

 

So, Daniel mentions (in my post) learning to code as a likely good move for editors, and Cynthia Reeh (@ceree_editing) asked via Twitter: “I’m itching to learn to code but trying to figure out where to start, what aspect of coding to focus on. Macros are a good start?”

My response:

What code to start learning

Interesting question. Different uses. Macros are one language (called Visual Basic, yes?) used during MS development/ editing. XML /HTML are another language altogether — used in websites & ebooks. (And other stuff?)

With luck & planning, you’ll need to code macros once, ever. (Once your systems are in place, you needn’t revisit the code.) But XML comes up again & again, with each new project. Apparently, technically, XML and HTML aren’t “programming code,” they’re a markup language; but anyone in publishing who tells you to learn code is talking about XML. “It’s all ‘code’ to us.” Hey, we just recently stopped calling it “squiggly bits.”

But if you ask a “programmer”, they’ll tell you to learn C++ or Python. At least, that’s what they’re telling me, right before I run away screaming.

 

Photo by Peter Rodacaj used under CC BY-2 license.

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