
Ask HN: How do you combine writing and the skills you have - visopsys
I recently find writing is one of the most underrated skills for me. Part of the problems is the way writing was taught in my schools. It was uninspiring and had nothing related with what I wanted to do.<p>After seeing people around me successful at writing, I can see its benefit now. I have my writing started but keen to hear your experience here.<p>How do you combine writing and the skills you already have (programming, project management, etc) to build a successful career? Does writing matter to your career at all?
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austincheney
Here is a recent comment I wrote on the subject that received 105 up votes:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23018347](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23018347)

My suggestion is to be purpose driven and use writing as your primary tool to
enable your goals. Also know that programming is a form of writing. As your
writing skills get stronger so will your programming and vise versa.

One way to get started at writing practice is to take a current tough
programming problem and think through it as much as possible before ever
putting fingers to keyboard. Build that vision in your mind. Consider the edge
cases, risks, and traps. When you are confident in the vision write down the
flow control in regular written language in a way that makes the most sense to
you.

Other people likely won’t understand your notes if they are just for you.
That’s ok. Knowing and speaking to your audience takes practice. The most
important thing right now is that you are practicing.

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boberoni
Writing definitely matters to my career. There's some quote somewhere about
how writing clearly is akin to thinking clearly. Personally, I extend this
idea into _communicating clearly_. Career growth will be based on how
effectively you can get people around you to want to work on the same thing as
you, or support the same goals as you.

When you talk about "seeing people around me successful at writing", what
forms of writing are you referring to? Blogs and books? or, technical
specifications?

If you already have skills in, say, programming or product management, then
there's various ways to apply writing, and it all depends on your
circumstances.

My principles for writing boil down to "who is the audience", "who is the
writer", and "what is the purpose".

\- For example, if I'm writing a spec, then the _purpose_ will be to precisely
communicate the design of a project/feature.

\- The _audience_ is the implementors. How you write for the audience is
related to UX (of the reader). It took me a long time to learn how to find the
right level of abstraction for specs, so I don't confuse the implementor with
details but still give enough guidance as to what the requirements are.

\- The _writer_ is obviously yourself, but who is writer _in the reader's
eyes_. Thinking in this way, I would establish myself as someone who has
understood the problem and carefully designed the solution (in contrast, I
don't want to give off that I have no idea what the problem space is). How you
portray the writer is related to credibility and trust. For tech specs, this
would likely involve references or links to your previous documents.

If you are writing for a blog, the audience, writer, and purpose will change.
Let me know if you want me to explain further.

