Ask HN: Why Blog as a Developer? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why Blog as a Developer?

The most repeated answers seem to be:

a) To get a (better) job, or some other career benefit. b) To build a brand and/or following. c) To become a better communicator.

Are there additional benefits, especially for someone with no need for a career or branding?

I feel compelled to collect my creations and thoughts in one place, but can't make a lot of sense of it. I feel it's almost entirely Ego driven, though I am certain no one gives a damn what I would write or do.

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I've started blogging again. My reasons are:

1. Journaling. I think time went by really fast with the lockdown. It's been 2 years but it looks like nothing happened, when in fact a lot did. There are bits of evidence of my work in social media, including HN, but quitting FB made me lose some of that evidence. And the evidence of my past existence was one of the things keeping me from quitting social media.

2. A variation of your c, to understand a topic better. Most of the time when I write something here, it's to have my thoughts criticised. But that's not even necessary most of the time. Once thoughts are down on text, there's plenty of holes for self-criticism. Blogging puts it out there in a form that welcomes criticism, which forces you to iterate on your thoughts.

So many reasons to blog (or speak/otherwise share info in a public forum)

Some others

- As a form of documentation: there's no better documentation than what targets a general audience. Since those who need documentation often DONT have your team's tribal knowledge, translating the lessons learned to a general audience helps onboard people into some of the principles and ideas the team uses. Bonus: it's indexed on Google, so your team will hopefully run into it if they have the problem the article discusses.

- To sharpen your thinking: you don't _really_ know something unless you can teach someone something. Often people will buy a book or take training to 'fill in the gaps'. TBH the real way I feel good about 'filling in the gaps' on a topic is when I'm forced to write or teach the topic, for sheer fear of embarrassment that I say something dumb.

- To receive critique and grow your skills: when you put an idea out, the feedback you get from the broad Internet will be blunt and unforgiving. In case you want to pop your bubble of nearby friends that don't want to offend you, you'll definitely get some different perspectives (some pedantic/annoying, others kinder)

If a, b, c don't compel you, you may do fine with keeping an engineering journal or a personal wiki if all you need is a place to collect your knowledge.

However, to advocate for blogging I've got 2 points:

1. Refining your opinions -- related to becoming a better communicator, I think that forming a cogent opinion post requires you to really think through your thoughts, opinion, and experience on a topic. As a project it can be a great learning exercise, I find that I gain a much more solid understanding once I feel the need to back up my opinions with experience and references.

Which brings me to 2. Learning in public.

Taking the time to write up a good post and share it around exposes you to people who will agree with you, challenge your ideas, and importantly learn from your experience. It's a way to find a community and give back to it, and gain more in return.

Does 1 help you with c? Yes. Is 2 also networking, branding, maybe building a following? Sure, if you try at those parts.

Most the blogs that I want to read care a lot more about concentrating knowledge and experience so they can learn from and help grow others e.g. Julia Evans or Alexis King

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