
Why you should have a programming blog - tn6o
http://samurails.com/lifestyle/why-you-should-have-a-programming-blog/
======
whoisthemachine
Have to disagree. If you feel like you have something to say, and you feel
like a blog is the right format, then sure, have a blog. But this article
feels a lot like one those "self-help" articles that instructs you how to
improve your life (Work-out in the morning! Eliminate all sugar from your
diet! etc.) In the end, this author has the audacity to say that since
something works for him then that necessarily means that everyone else should
follow that formula.

TL;DR: do you whatever you want to, man.

Oh and disclaimer: I have a blog but I rarely post technical insights. It's
more or less a way for me to post my creations and occasionally a cool picture
or something. [http://davidvedvick.info](http://davidvedvick.info)

~~~
tn6o
Author here, I'm sorry if the article felt that way, that wasn't my intention
at all. It's true that it's something that works for me (and probably for
other people) but people should obviously do what they want.

I still think everyone should give it a try. Maybe it won't work for them but
it could be great for others. They won't know until they've tried ;)

------
lamacase
I don't particularly like the blog format. The central organizational feature
of a blog is a timeline. The idea that something you said is "older" than some
other thing is not a particularly useful relationship. Though you would
probably like to hear if a particular idea had been updated.

I think something closer to a personal wiki would be better. All links to
entries would be versioned so external links always point to the content they
intended, but the entry would contain a link to an updated version if it
exists.

I think having a medium where people tend to curate their content, rather than
forgetting about it and moving on, would lead to higher quality content over
time.

~~~
hnarn
From reading the comments here, I keep thinking Stackexchange. A lot of people
don't use SE this way, but it's possible to ask a question and right away
answer it yourself, before submitting even. I do this sometimes when I learn
something. Let the upvotes speak and mark the answer as "wiki" to make sure
it's future-proof, so others can update outdated/bad info.

------
Afforess
I don't blog because I have found the internet is too hateful, too quick to
judge, and too eager to bring torches and pitchforks. I have a quiet, calm,
low-stress life and I can not justify giving up those for free, just to share
a few thoughts on the internet to others. My mental health is worth more than
whatever notoriety I might gain from internet blogging.

~~~
swalsh
I feel the same way, even if its just one comment out of 20. That one comment
can really get to you, and it lowers the mood to a generally negative level. I
have a lot of respect for people can blog about "new" ideas on a regular
basis. It takes a lot of persistence.

~~~
tn6o
Author here. I totally get you guys. I'm just the same and I actually got a
few hate comments (not on HN) about this article. Of course, it makes me sad
and I'm thinking about just stopping everything. Why bother? But the next day,
I realize there are people who liked it and that makes me want to try again
and get better :)

~~~
rdudek
The beauty about comments is that if you own the blog, you can moderate them.
Having a discussion about why something is wrong is a good thing as long as it
does not turn into "I hate your f-ing post" type of deals.

------
lloeki
Nitpick: the Einstein quote is predated by Nicolas Boileau in _l 'Art
Poétique_ (1674)

    
    
        Avant donc que d'écrire, apprenez à penser.
        Selon que notre idée est plus ou moins obscure,
        L'expression la suit, ou moins nette, ou plus pure. 
        Ce que l'on conçoit bien s'énonce clairement,
        Et les mots pour le dire arrivent aisément.
    

Translated on the spot (as a futile attempt from a non-native speaker to
preserve the poetry of it):

    
    
        Before even to write, one should learn to think.
        As the idea is more or less obscure
        Expression follows, 'ther less clear, or more pure.
        What's best understood is uttered clearly,
        And those words to tell come that easily.
    

I'm always surprised how much such a work originally applying to art and
poetry is also relevant to code. Another example:

    
    
        Hâtez-vous lentement, et sans perdre courage,
        Vingt fois sur le métier remettez votre ouvrage,
        Polissez-le sans cesse, et le repolissez,
        Ajoutez quelquefois, et souvent effacez.
    

T9n:

    
    
        Haste yourself slowly, keep up with bravery,
        Your work on the bench put again a twenty,
        Endlessly you polish, and again polish it,
        Occasionally add, much often delete.

~~~
tn6o
Thanks for the reference and nice job on the translation. Pas aussi poétique,
mais presque ;)

------
steveklabnik
Best part about having a programming blog: writing a quick post about how you
fixed some error, then a year or two later, googling for the error and finding
your own blog post on it.

~~~
tn6o
So true!

------
izolate
Disagree. I have nothing to say that I don't already say via twitter, on
github (repos, gists), comments on HN/reddit/blogs.

I already have all these tools at my disposal to impart my knowledge. I find
blogs too self-indulgent.

~~~
fastball
If someone googles a question about programming, the top results are probably
not going to be your github repos, your twitter tweets, or your comments on
various sites. The top result will probably be Stack Overflow (for small
questions) or a blog post (for the more comprehensive ones).

It seems to me that if "helping others" is the goal, your method of sharing is
much more self-indulgent than a blog.

Also who imparts actual programming knowledge with their tweets? You find a
way past the character limit? That must be one of the sillier things I've
heard on here in a long time.

~~~
izolate
Your imagination is failing you.

Twitter is an excellent medium to share links to tools with others who may
find them useful. An example from today:
[https://twitter.com/izolate/status/596262146553597952](https://twitter.com/izolate/status/596262146553597952)

~~~
biot
To play devil's advocate, this is little more than a recipe to be followed by
rote. I didn't learn anything in that gist other than a clever way to find the
version number. Why does it get installed into my home directory... is that
suitable for a production server? And so on...

------
swalsh
I stopped blogging because my skin isn't thick enough. I wrote a post a few
times, and several people complemented it each time. But then a few very angry
people shredded my ideas to pieces. Emotionally it really bummed me out, so I
deleted it.

------
philh
Please don't maintain a blog just to improve your job prospects.

Not that I think it won't work. But it's an arms race, it only helps you until
everyone else starts doing it as well. The cost of playing along is that
everybody who wants a job needs to spend more time doing something they don't
care about, and "has a blog" becomes less valuable as a signal to employers.

...besides, I already have a blog, and I don't want to lose that advantage.

------
haberman
I agree with the idea that one effective way of learning about something you
don't understand is to write an article about it. The act of writing it forces
you to clarify your understanding to the point that you can explain it to
someone else.

Here are some articles I wrote where at least 50% of the article consists of
things I _didn 't_ understand prior to writing the article:

[http://blog.reverberate.org/2014/09/what-every-computer-
prog...](http://blog.reverberate.org/2014/09/what-every-computer-programmer-
should.html)

[http://blog.reverberate.org/2014/02/react-
demystified.html](http://blog.reverberate.org/2014/02/react-demystified.html)

[http://blog.reverberate.org/2013/05/deep-wizardry-stack-
unwi...](http://blog.reverberate.org/2013/05/deep-wizardry-stack-
unwinding.html)

------
kpcyrd
If everybody, regardless of their skill level, is writing a blog, we'll end up
with a lot of new tutorials how to build yet another insecure fileupload or
bypassable .htaccess files.

~~~
Killswitch
One of my biggest pet peeves is these blogs that do things like "Getting
started with Express.js" and they cover HALF of what the Getting Started docs
on Express' website offers.

------
mdemare
Suppose there are 10M programmers worldwide. Should there be 10M programming
blogs?

~~~
fastball
Why not? If we were manually filtering all these blogs, then of course not.

But we're not. We have google. It doesn't matter how many blogs there are as
long as you are not re-hashing solved problems that have been explained
thoroughly.

~~~
orteipid
That, however, is the exact problem; most blogs _are_ simple rehashes of the
same things that have already been said. One could argue that this very
article is a prime example of why someone shouldn't have (or rather, doesn't
need) a blog. It isn't an attack against the quality of the writing itself,
but the reality is that there's little of value because everything there has
already been said countless times before.

~~~
enraged_camel
Depends on the purpose of the blog. I maintain a blog for two reasons. One,
writing about problems and their solutions as if I'm explaining them to
someone else is a great way to solidify the concepts in one's mind (similar to
rubber-duck debugging[1]). Two, having an active blog is a signal to potential
employers that you're active in the ecosystem. Even if someone is rehashing
the same old topics in their posts, seeing how they think and how well they
write can be a useful indicator.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging)

~~~
nfoz
Those are both reasons why it is in your interest to write a blog. They are
not reasons why someone might want to actually read your blog (short of
prospective employers).

It's interesting that this is the focus.

------
sklogic
Why should I contribute to an increasing entropy?

~~~
rimantas
Why you just did?

~~~
sklogic
Precisely. I'm contributing anyway (by commenting, breathing, farting), so why
should I do it even more?

~~~
teach
Blogging is far preferable to commenting in a public forum because I don't
have to see it unless I visit.

To use your own analogy: commenting on Reddit/Youtube/HN is like farting in
public. Blogging is like farting in your own home.

~~~
sklogic
There is a significant nuance: blogs are most likely indexed by google.
Comments are invisible. So blogs are generating much more noise, obstructing
an access to information much more dramatically than even a 5000-strong
comments thread could ever do.

~~~
teach
Comments are most certainly indexed by Google. They are not usually ranked
highly. And crappy blogs are also indexed and not ranked very highly.

Both generate comparable "noise", except that there are a lot more comments.

~~~
sklogic
Then why, when I search for a solution to a specific problem (e.g., googling
for an error message, etc.), I most likely land in some blog full of ramblings
with no solution whatsoever? And often the real solution is hidden somewhere
in comments on SE, never listed in any sane google query.

------
arikrak
I'm not sure it makes sense for every person to create their own blog,
especially if they're not going to post frequently. Few people will end up
reading anything they write. Instead it may make sense to contribute content
to another website. This could either be open-source / CC content, or they
could be paid for their articles.

(Perhaps they could also embed programming challenges in their articles so
people can try out what the article discusses...)

------
revskill
You should change the title to: Why you should have a fast programming blog.
Making reader waiting for the content fully loaded on your blog is really
annoying :)

------
RobSis
I do have a blog, but I only post when I have something to say to the subject
- something that wasn't already said elsewhere. Otherwise I'd consider it just
waste of space...

------
JDiculous
I agree, but only if you have something interesting or useful to say. And I
agree with the comments saying that the blog isn't the best format to convey
information since it's sorted by time. I'm in the process of redesigning my
blog to sort by subject matter, and separate small code snippets from more in-
depth posts.

On another note, I wish more programmers wrote about topics other than just
technical ones.

------
Two9A
So what happens if you have a blog but can't find the time to write to the
level of detail you'd like? I haven't had a chance to write a thing since my
aborted series on JPEG encoding, two years ago; there are multiple abandoned
series lurking in there, waiting for me...

------
vanessa98
A rails blog doesn't seem like a great soapbox to stand on here.

------
M8
Not persuaded.

~~~
fredsted
Write a blog article about why!

------
Dewie3
You could just have your own technical diary so to speak if you don't want to
share it with the world.

