Blog posts are collaboration (1). I did get the sense that Andrew doesn't see it that way. (And for this post in particular, and writegate in general, I have been discussing it on the discord channel. I know that isn't an official channel).
My reasons for not engaging more directly doesn't have anything to do with my confidence / knowledge. They are personal. The linked issues, which I was aware of, are only tangentially related. And even if they specifically addressed my concerns, I don't see how writing about it is anything but useful.
But I also got the sense that more direct collaboration is welcome and could be appreciated.
(1) - I'm the author of The Little MongoDB Book, The Little Redis Book, The Little Go Book, etc... I've always felt that the appeal of my writing is that I'm an average programmer. I run into the same problems, and struggle to understand the same things that many programmers do. When I write, I'm able to write from that perspective.
No matter how inclusive a community you have, there'll always be some opinions and perspectives which get drowned out. It can be intimidating to say "I don't understand", or "it's too complicated" or, god forbid, "I think this is a bad design"; especially when the experts are saying the opposite. I'm old enough that I see looking the fool as both a learning and mentoring experience. If saying "io.Reader is too complicated" saves someone else the embarrassment of saying it, or the shame of feeling it, or gives them a reference to express their own thoughts, I'm a happy blogger.
Make blog posts, it's great!, but if you don't think you're the expert then they'll go a lot farther for everyone if you put 5% of the work of doing so into engaging with the community about it for additional insights first. That's a fair note to make, though I agree the ending could be less passive aggressive about those who don't want to engage with the community.
> Kinda wish the author would attempt to collaborate rather than write stuff like this [...] but, whatever, it’s their blog so they can do what they want.
...feels like passive aggression. In particular the "stuff like this" (like what?) and "but, whatever" felt very unnecessary and the whole "I wish he'd collaborate on my terms" is IMO uncalled for.
I'm glad you made the note about that part though, I agree with it and we can always do better.
Disclaimer: I'm a zig fanboy and do all my hobby stuff in it