Ask HN: Why blog as a developer? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why blog as a developer?

The common answer is, "It's nice to give back, blah blah".

Besides that, what real value does blogging give to you, the developer?

I'm starting to write TILs (Today I Learned). At the beginning of the day, I open up a markdown post, then proceed to write whatever I'm learning that day. It's not very polished or finished, but I publish it on my site at the end of the day.

I've tried writing blog posts before, but there was too much friction, as I was trying to write for a fictitious audience.

TILs help me write for a specific audience - me.

I really like this idea. It looks like you just started the other day, but I hope you keep it up.

I can see two aspects to this habit. One, it functions as a kind of journal of work that would be useful to look back on in the future when you're trying to put together the highlights of what you've worked on over the last few years.

Beyond that you'll probably write about a lot of stuff that other people would find useful. Though it might be hard for people to sift through and find. If you made sure your content was easily searchable I bet a lot of people would really appreciate it.

Good points. I definitely think of it as a journal of work.

Making it highly searchable would make it more useful for me as well as anyone visiting.

I write down things I've had to look up or research while working, or little snippets which might come in handy in the future.

I also find that writing a tutorial-style post helps me understand new frameworks or concepts better, since I have to make sure I know enough about the subject to be able to explain it.

It's also nice that people read it and recognise you - I've worked at a couple of places now where people have mentioned one of my posts has been helpful.

Visibility and marketing of yourself to your future employers which might translate into better jobs for more money.

If you wrote amazing piece of code and nobody (except your coworkers) saw it, did it really happen? How would a potential future employer know?

By blogging about things you learn you establish yourself as someone who knows the stuff you blog about. It might lead to incoming job opportunities and helps when you submit your resume.

What if you don't care for employers or what people think of you? (self employed, etc.)

What if I tell you another reason and you ask "what if you don't care about reason X" ?

So maybe instead of asking other people, it's time for you to figure out yourself why millions of people blog.

The answer you gave (a valid answer) is well known and understood (vanity).

I'm curious why developers blog other than vanity.

to reinforce one's own understanding. you're motivated to get things right if you know that other people will be reading it, rather than, say, writing something in your own private notes.

This is why I do it. I don't blog for "vanity" mostly because there isn't much glory in it at the level I'm blogging. There are so many others out there way smarter who do it better than me.

I do it simply to:

- Share with others cool stuff I've learned

- Formulate stuff I've learned into a structure so I better understand it

- Put it out there so people will criticize/mock it, and improve my game.

does altruism count as vanity? people often feel good sharing information with others and helping others. perhaps that's still "vanity", but i don't think so.

His answer was not vanity. Vanity is just probably, not nescessarily, and surely not uniquely, one of the reasons behind his answer.

Very key for independent consultants. Almost essential

Becoming visible is even more important if you're self-employed, so much more so it is not even optional but essential. How else would you find clients?

The rate of people recruiting me for interesting work had an uptick after a technical blog post. I've had several professional recruiters tell me they liked one of my non-technical posts that they could understand -- so people do look at it.

Blogging allows me to really learn something, because I tend to write technical posts that are deep dives on topics. e.g. I pick a topic, say neural style transfer (https://harishnarayanan.org/writing/artistic-style-transfer/), and then I force myself to learn a bunch about deep learning before I write about it.

In addition, it gives me exposure, opens up opportunity for talks, and sparks interesting conversations with many people.

How much time it take to write that blog? Can you please elaborate the time management etc. Normally I do not get time to work on that kind of thing.

It takes a very, very long time (like many months per post). And I don't mind, because the goal is not to have a quick stream of posts, the goal is to learn something and explain it without magic. So I let it take the time it takes.

I work on it steadily (like a set few hours per week + some really concentrated days on weekends when I can make the time).

When I first started to blog as a developer, I was paralyzed about what to write as I wanted to make extra sure that my posts were nothing short of life changing. Thus, I didn't do it that much and the posts were incredibly painful to write.

However, one of my cohorts said that he blogged for nobody else but himself- mostly as a point of reference for a later date. I absolutely loved this idea and have ran with it since.

Granted, my blog may look pretty random these days as its sprinkled with things that I'm learning and things I want to use for reference, but I also don't have to look up the esoteric things that you don't do often (such as setting up symlinks).

I wouldn't discount the power of a blog. Even if its not prolific or life changing, it is a good example of what you're working on and learning, which will inevitably come in handy somewhere down the line for you.

It's a good way to crystallise and cement new knowledge; especially if you're in a work situation where you don't get many opportunities to exchange knowledge with your colleagues.

I'm lucky enough at the moment to be in a very collaborative team, where knowledge sharing is just part of daily interactions; but I've been in positions in the past where those interactions were not present and I found that writing howtos and reports on experiments was a great way to review the things I'd learned.

I find it a good way to think through ideas in more detail.

For example, I always wanted to implement a few financial trading software ideas using programming languages I don't use at work, such as scala and javascript. By writing a blog post, I force myself to make the project at least somewhat complete and understand it enough to explain it to others. It is a good way to commit to something, at least for a few weeks.

1. If you blog about something it's a good as a go to source in future, be it programming problems you have to solve again or arguments on the internet (here's one I prepared earlier).

2. It improves your writing, particularly technical writing, something developers are notoriously bad at. Written communication is just as important as coding chops for most developer jobs, sometimes more important.

3. It's a good outlet for whatever is frustrating you at work. None of my friends are developers so my old man rants (a skill is still in it's infancy for me) are lost on them.

Edit - The spelling mistakes indicate I still have room for improvement.

I find #2 to be very interesting, I can also see how the action of writing can help reinforce other skills/knowledge. Therefore blogging could be a form of self education or improvement.

#1/#3 seem quite specific but I can see how some people may write with those in mind.

I don't tech blog mainly because I don't have time right now and I would say I'm still very fresh and young so that my material wouldn't be too interesting but here are my views.

From an outside scope:

* Marketing and exposure to others about yourself as a developer

From a personal level:

* When you write about anything, you think about it in deeper terms and understand it better. For tech, it would help you solidify concepts and be similar to teaching others (if that's how you want to write it)

* May or may not improve writing skills, which can be good all around. (It will definitely improve if you're writing for OTHER people. If you're just writing for yourself, maybe not)

Because "if you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it enough"

I blog to make sure I understand the new concepts I learn.

As a woman in tech, I also blog to inspire and get more women interested in technology.

I started blogging (then stopped) mostly to share general ideas about tech and thoughts I had. Usually things that most people would not agree on.

I would say, I was blogging in order to share my personal opinion with who ever wanted to read.

I've been blogging for over a decade. As an independent consultant... While the leads I get over the Internet tend to be weak, it's still given me visibility. Most colleagues & startups I meet with in NYC have already heard of me. Name recognition is huge.

As others have said, honing your ideas is also a process that blogging chisels & fine tunes.

http://www.iheavy.com/2017/03/13/30-questions-to-ask-a-serve...

- learning something yourself by teaching it

- understand nuances in something by teaching it

- improving your writing skills

- seeing a purpose in helping others

- building a personal brand that helps you to land jobs in the future or create a business from it

Writing about something you've learned can help to solidify that knowledge. Also, it's like a diary -- you can look back and see how you've grown over time.

You either do it for yourself:

- So that you have some place to store interesting solutions, things you've learned, notes, et..

- So recruiters / others can find you and offer to hire you.

Or you do it for others:

- If you spent the last two days bashing your head against a problem and found a good solution, then chances are that there will be others out there looking for the same solution. Just as you found solutions of others useful, this is a way for you to give back to your fellow developers.

The best way to learn something is to teach it!

Blogging, or writing in general, fortifies your knowledge. By having to actually write down what you think on a topic, you first have to actualise what it is you think. Your gaps in knowledge become really apparent when you try to write with authority on some topic.

I started blogging because I kept losing notes. Having it in one place meant i didnt have to worry about it anymore, then you realise that you are getting traffic and feedback and actually helping people. Which is nice

My blog is mostly java and spring - www.javabullets.com - any feedback is good

I've found myself referring to my own blog posts when I re-visit a subject, or when I want to show something cool to someone else I can just send them my posts. Beats explaining the same thing 100 times.

Developer before I was a blogger.. but I love both!

Just a quick note: I'm a psychology major... I was fascinated with industrial-organizational psychology, or more specifically, the workplace, and I had wanted to do something with it. I have yet to pursue my masters but hope to in the future. Anyways, after college and teaching English in another country for a year, I ran out of money, and returned home where I turned to a self-taught skill when I was a teenager: programming. Never thought I could do it for money, but apparently, there is a demand for it. And that is where I am today. One job led to another led to another.. and I'm just in a very good place right now.

So... I began http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com as a hobby. Didn't know where it would lead. Didn't really think about what it could be used for or what value people would get from it. All I knew is the value I would get from it: learning why people go to work (money or other reasons), what we can do to make the workplace a better place to be, and how we can get along with our co-workers better. Hopefully it is something I could use towards research when pursuing a masters degree.

Confessions of the Professions is a source for understanding jobs, careers, and the workplace. It started out as an outlet to rant about my workplace, my boss, my co-workers. I must've had a good 10 stories to tell and already written up before the blog even began.

After some time, I asked my family and friends about their jobs and tried to convince them to write about it, but they wouldn't. They only told me their stories, so I wrote them down as best as I could and I had new material. I then solicited on Craigslist and even paid a bunch of people on Fiverr to write about their experiences in the workplace. MyBlogGuest (http://www.myblogguest.com) and MyBlogU (http://www.myblogu.com) would also be extremely helpful in my efforts to solicit even more articles.. and then infographics, ebooks, etc.

Over time, it had gotten more popular.. and I began receiving dozens of emails a week with more companies and people wanting to be a part of it. I no longer solicit on any website. The emails just keep coming. I've gotten contributions from reputable universities like Ohio University, Florida University, UCLA, etc. I usually receive articles from their psychology, business, or science departments. I also get articles or infographics from businesses as well, usually from hotels and the hospitality fields. A lot of marketing companies use the website as an article distribution source. Everyone shares and it keeps getting discovered. I'm helping everyone out and they are helping me out. It has become a great community. I have over a dozen repeat contributors who keep coming back with new material.

It has been a great experience.. it's been running for almost 5 years now. I keep writing. Others keep writing. It keeps going. I have certainly thought about just stopping and no longer maintaining it, but then I get more emails, and I can't ignore them, so I just keep it going! I get to learn a lot of new information before its even released to the public. I have learned a ton about SEO and people in general. I've gotten to speak to people from all over the world including most parts of Europe, the Philippines, India, South Africa, Australia, and I think I even spoke to someone from Hongkong once.

There has been a ton of benefits to keeping it going: exposure to visitors. New information. Networking. Connections. Writing. Thinking in a mature manner, especially in dealing with people. Learning about new web design trends. Optimized coding. I also loved the email I got last week from an elementary class who was using the website for their project on learning about saving money for retirement. Random viral confessions. My average daily count of visitors is usually around 1,000 a day, but for about 2 weeks just last week, I was receiving about 10,000 visitors a day. A different article was going viral everyday. Unfortunately, I could only track down the source as Google, but I wish I had known where it was coming from and why. Sometimes, the website just gets hits from popular trends or keywords such as "unemployment" or "retirement" or even "webcam model". And I do make some money from the ads.. not a crazy amount, but it pays for the domain and the server.

The website is technically no longer "my blog" as it has become everyone's blog. I occasionally get to post my own articles, but I do give everyone else priority over mine. And I wish I could publish more than once or twice a day, but behind the scenes -- it would mean a lot of work to do more than that.

It has also made me learn and be more confident as a developer. I've moved the website from shared to optimized VPS to cloud server. If it weren't for the website, I probably would have never bothered to learn what "cloud computing" was. It is my baby, my first ever website that I pushed out to the public. Some weeks there will be no emails, and then all of a sudden, it's like everyone got the memo, and I'll get about 20 articles or infographics all at once. Definitely not my full-time job, but it keeps me busy, and I do it because I love it. Apparently, there are many people out there who also understand its mission too.

Very interesting and somewhat unusual blog story. Congrats.

I too have been blogging for some years now - around 9 years. Enjoying it. And I get work inquiries and training inquiries because of it - I know because some of my clients have told me that they found me through my blog.

Why blog? For ad revenue.

Because recruiter emails make you warm and fuzzy inside.

I initially used to do it because that what all the cool kids were doing.

Now I'm starting again to use it as open note-book.

Because some of my past google searches literally pointed me to my own old blog post. Every time that happened, it gave me a very smug feeling.

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