cyndunlop

Some responses (Simon Wilison, antirez, Gergely Orosz, Sean Goedecke...) here: https://writethatblog.substack.com/t/tech-blogger-insights?s...

I think the appropriate level of "storytelling" depends on the type of blog post. A "bug hunt" type of post is often told as a detective story. A benchmark post has almost zero storytelling. Different purposes warrant different approaches.

See discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49794330

A survey to see why/how people were having LLMs write their articles. Some findings: - 40% of “always-LLM” writers never wrote before, 20% rarely wrote before - 72% of those who generated LLM drafts performed substantial editing, 23% totally rewrote the drafts - Only 13% felt LLMs captured their voice, only 11% felt LLMs captured their ideas - 73% did not disclose that they used LLMs to write

I knew people didn't like AI-scented articles, mainly wanted to see what specific actions people took when they encountered them.

I actually started a survey on how people react to AI assisted blogging ~a week ago. It's at https://forms.gle/oskwkY12epMpXHAZ6 if you want to share there as well

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47573519

My colleague and I published a book to help developers write more compelling blog posts. Bryan Cantrill wrote the foreword, Scott Hanselman wrote the afterword. Eric Lippert was the technical editor. There are more details at https://github.com/scynthiadunlop/WritingForDevelopersBook

You can read some chapters for free on the Manning site. Chapter 8 is available at https://writethatblog.substack.com/p/the-bug-hunt-blog-post-.... And if you want some other chapter(s) as a preview, find the authors and ask nicely.

The book covers strategies for optimizing all phases of the technical blogging process (topic selection, planning, drafting, revising…). Then, we have fun exploring popular engineering blog post patterns such as “The Bug Hunt,” “How We Built It,” “Lessons Learned,” “We Rewrote It in X,” “Thoughts on Trends,” etc. Each "pattern" chapter includes an analysis of real-world examples as well as specific dos/don’ts for that particular pattern. There's a section on moving from blogging into opportunities such as article writing, conference speaking, and book writing. Finally, we wrap with a look at generative AI blogging uses and abuses.

It’s NOT some thinly veiled effort to sell editing/training services (we don’t have any and don't plan to). And it’s not intended to help you get rich from blogging or to divulge some magic formula for hitting the top of HN.

Here’s the table of contents…

Part 1: Fundamentals>>> 1 Why write 2 What to write 3 Captivating readers

Part 2: Nailing the writing process>>> 4 Creating your working draft 5 Optimizing your draft 6 Getting feedback 7 Ship it

Part 3: Applying blog post patterns>>> 8 The “Bug Hunt” pattern 9 The “Rewrote It in X” pattern 10 The “How We Built It” pattern 11 The “Lessons Learned” pattern 12 The “Thoughts on Trends” pattern 13 The “Non-markety Product Perspectives” pattern 14 The “Benchmarks and Test Results” pattern

Part 4: Promotion, adaptation, and expansion>>> 15 Getting attention 16 From blog post to conference talk 17 So you want to write a book

Appendices>>> A. Publishing and writing resources B. AI uses and abuses

My colleague and I published a book (w Manning) to help developers write more compelling blog posts. Bryan Cantrill wrote the foreword, Scott Hanselman wrote the afterword. Eric Lippert was the technical editor.

The book covers strategies for optimizing all phases of the technical blogging process (topic selection, planning, drafting, revising…). Then, we have fun exploring popular engineering blog post patterns such as “The Bug Hunt,” “How We Built It,” “Lessons Learned,” “We Rewrote It in X,” “Thoughts on Trends,” etc. Each "pattern" chapter includes an analysis of real-world examples as well as specific dos/don’ts for that particular pattern. There's a section on moving from blogging into opportunities such as article writing, conference speaking, and book writing. Finally, we wrap with a look at generative AI blogging uses and abuses.

It’s NOT some thinly veiled effort to sell editing/training services (we don’t have any and don't plan to). And it’s not intended to help you get rich from blogging or to divulge some magic formula for hitting the top of HN.

You can read some chapters for free on the Manning site (mng.bz/Y7oK). Chapter 8 is available at https://writethatblog.substack.com/p/the-bug-hunt-blog-post-.... And if you want some other chapter(s) as a preview, find the authors and ask nicely.

Here’s the table of contents…

Part 1: Fundamentals 1 Why write 2 What to write 3 Captivating readers

Part 2: Nailing the writing process 4 Creating your working draft 5 Optimizing your draft 6 Getting feedback 7 Ship it

Part 3: Applying blog post patterns 8 The “Bug Hunt” pattern 9 The “Rewrote It in X” pattern 10 The “How We Built It” pattern 11 The “Lessons Learned” pattern 12 The “Thoughts on Trends” pattern 13 The “Non-markety Product Perspectives” pattern 14 The “Benchmarks and Test Results” pattern

Part 4: Promotion, adaptation, and expansion 15 Getting attention 16 From blog post to conference talk 17 So you want to write a book

Appendices A. Publishing and writing resources B. AI uses and abuses

I'm biased (as a co-author), but I recommend Writing for Developers, published by Manning. ;-) https://github.com/scynthiadunlop/WritingForDevelopersBook

Feel free to find and DM me if you want a preview. Also, there are lots of tips from other tech bloggers here https://writethatblog.substack.com/t/tech-blogger-insights

I've found that reading it out loud (even a whisper) is the best way to catch issues as well as maintain focus.

Not affiliated with the book of the same name

There are a number of perspectives on why others write here: https://writethatblog.substack.com/p/why-write-engineering-b...

My colleague and I wrote a book on this: https://github.com/scynthiadunlop/WritingForDevelopersBook. Find and ping us if you want a copy.

A fun take on this here: https://livebook.manning.com/book/writing-for-developers/app... In case it's randomly scrambled by Manning - we had one GPT write a engineering blog, then had another GPT analyze whether it thought it was written by a human (and why). The response:

"This text appears to be AI-generated rather than written by a human. Here are the key indicators:

    1.   Unusually dense and consistent metaphors: The text maintains an extremely high density of Polish and Eastern European cultural references, dance metaphors, and programming analogies throughout. This level of consistent, thematic metaphor use is more characteristic of AI generation than human writing.

    2.   Overly flowery language: The prose is consistently ornate and poetic in a way that feels artificial. Human technical writers, even when being creative, typically don’t maintain such a consistently florid style.

    3.   Lack of specific technical details: While the post mentions Zig’s advantages, it doesn’t provide concrete examples or code snippets that a human developer would likely include based on real experience.

    4.   Perfect thematic consistency: The Polish/Eastern European theme is maintained flawlessly throughout, without any drift or inconsistency that would be natural in human writing.

    5.   Artificial emotional arc: The emotional journey feels manufactured rather than genuine, hitting predictable notes of curiosity, challenge, and triumph.

    6.   Too-perfect structure: The post follows an idealized narrative structure that feels more like it was generated to fit a template than a natural recounting of events.

    7.   Lack of genuine personal anecdotes: While framed as a personal journey, there are no specific, idiosyncratic details that would typically appear in a real developer’s account of learning a new language.

    8.   Overuse of cultural references: The density of Polish references feels more like it was generated from a list than organically incorporated by someone with lived experience.

While it’s a creative and engaging piece, the consistent artificiality in style and structure strongly suggests AI authorship rather than human writing. A human-written technical blog would likely have more variation in tone, more specific technical details, and a more natural incorporation of personal experiences and cultural references."

Details: https://github.com/scynthiadunlop/WritingForDevelopersBook

Also, we captured how other bloggers got started at https://writethatblog.substack.com/t/tech-blogger-insights

My colleague and I wrote a book on this: https://github.com/scynthiadunlop/WritingForDevelopersBook You can preview chapters on the Manning site.

More discussion on "Is maintaining a personal blog still worth it?": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42685534

Anyone familiar with HiTeX Press books? These look suspiciously AI generated.

Toasty was the focus of Carl Lerche's P99 CONF keynote on Wednesday. It provoked some interesting discussion in the chat.