Anthony Wilde

Zurich

Software Developer

I really do get wound up that technical skills are somehow made out to be the poor cousin of other skills.

To be effective technically the most crucial element is communication, from requirement to design to implementation.

I fail to understand why this core element of technical competance is not understood in wider circles.

Working in teams and with users to deliver software or other technology solutions this has to be the first skill.

Technical skills are based around design both at a numerical and literary expression both as formulas, proofs, design and testing strategies.

The tricky art of taking a technical solution to either an internal or external market - marketing and sales, production, distribution, budget control, resourcing skills, people, premises, hardware and looking after team building are all built on technical excellence.

Somewhere these latter skills seem to have gained the emphasise of late and the whole basis of scientific and engineering principles which they are built on have been diluted to the point where these are now an active barrier to new entrants into the technology society.