
Ask HN: Starting blogging when you're not an expert? - Prygan
Hi everyone,<p>Does it makes sense to you to start a (technical blog) when you know you&#x27;re not an expert in any field ?<p>I would like to start a blog where I could put articles about things I&#x27;m learning (frameworks, programming languages, concepts...) but I&#x27;m afraid it won&#x27;t be relevant for anyone as I&#x27;m don&#x27;t have any real advanced knowledge in any fields in particular.<p>Just to be clear : I don&#x27;t expect&#x2F;want to make money of it or to become suddenly attractive for recruiters, I just think it could help me learn more, faster and to improve my communications skills.
======
wjg
Even if you aren't using it to become attractive for recruiters, this will
probably happen. I went from rarely (like, extremely) getting callbacks for
remote gigs to getting around 30%-40% callbacks. The difference was that I
started a blog about writing a web application with modern technologies and
included it in my applications. It's a pretty bland blog, but just the fact
that I wrote about stuff I'm interested in and has relevancy with the jobs I'm
applying for has really paid off.

I definitely feel like an imposter, and I have no readers, but it definitely
sharpens my abilities and has really forced me to really understand why I
build something a certain way and to evaluate alternatives.

Do it.

~~~
cgb223
Do let us know how much more viewership you get after posting this on HN

Or better yet, write a blog post about it

~~~
wjg
Ha, this post provided around 620 unique visitors yesterday. I had 1 visitor
(who was probably me) the day before, so that's a nice bump from HN :)

It will be interesting to see how traffic dies/tails off in the coming days.

------
tannerc
The way to become an expert in anything is to research the thing, do the
thing, and reflect on the thing. Blogging is a good way to conduct the first
and last part of that process.

If you'll allow me a personal anecdote on the matter:

10 years ago I knew absolutely nothing about "creativity." I worked in an
environment where the word was tossed around a lot, but any time I asked what
it meant I got conflicting, confusing, and sometimes seemingly backwards
responses.

I wanted to better understand the concept I kept hearing about, so I started a
blog. I worked hard to read everything I could about creativity, wrote down my
thoughts on the subject a few times a week, and connected with people also
interested in the subject.

After just a couple of years I started building up a sizable audience. It
turned out a lot of people didn't know much about creativity and wanted to
follow along my journey. My naivety was theirs, and by sharing the journey of
discovery and rumination with the audience, they felt like the journey was
just as much their as it was mine.

After six years I had more than 150,000 subscribers to the blog and a book
deal with a real publisher. I ended up being invited to write for Adobe's
creative publication 99u as well as Inc.com. As of a year or two ago I started
being invited to speak on creativity at events around the world. I also ended
up building a number of successful products (apps and publications) based on
the things I learned over my years blogging.

Everything I learned about creative thinking over the last decade is thanks to
that blog and the time I put into it.

The catch is this: it takes time and effort to blog, about anything. At times
it can be an arduous task. You can dedicate 10 years to it like I have and
still not see anything tangible come as a result. But the biggest benefit to
blogging about a specific subject—particularly if you are not yet an expert in
that subject—is the same benefit to journaling: it gives you an excuse to
think about the thing in ways that you otherwise may not.

~~~
_jdams
I was greatly inspired by your post, and I'll be spending the rest of the
evening reading your CreativeSomething blog and a little more about your
story.

I have a strong desire to follow your path, but instead of Creativity as a
focus, it is on finding ways to achieve a simple, less stressful life through
automation of repetitive tasks, good habits, organization, etc. Think
"Wellness" but with possibly a more tech-focused spin. I get much satisfaction
from books like Spark Joy (Marie Kondo), Four Hour Work Week (Timothy
Ferriss), and I Will Teach You To Be Rich (Ramit Sethi).

Your post about researching, doing, and reflecting really speaks to me. And I
feel like I should jump in... but I'm hesitant because I'm not sure I can
easily come up with 20-25 starting topics to research and write about. In your
case, Creativity seems like a core keyword that is (easier) to start with. Do
you have any recommendations for me?

Again, thanks so much. Your comment may be what changes my life!

~~~
tannerc
Many years ago I did a webcast for Moz (formerly SEOmoz) on the topic of how
to find things to write about. The webcast is behind a member wall (free to
sign up I think) but might be helpful to you[1].

Other tricks I use to come up with things to write about: search
Twitter/Quora/Reddit for people specifically asking questions related to what
it is you want to write about (e.g. "automatic habit"). Then break each
question down into its fundamental components to create a more complete set of
topics, asking who, what, where, when, why, and how of each specific question
you encounter. This way one question ("What types of habits should be
automated") can very easily become several ("Who benefits most from automating
habits?", "Where does automation take place?", "When should someone consider
automating habits vs. not?", etc.).

1 [https://moz.com/webinars/from-nothing-to-expert-how-to-
blog-...](https://moz.com/webinars/from-nothing-to-expert-how-to-blog-like-
you-mean-it)

------
JoshDoody
"...I just think it could help me learn more, faster and to improve my
communications skills."

That's reason enough to write about what you're learning. Patio11 talks about
this a lot - it's important that people learning new things write about what
they're learning _as they learn it_ because they'll encounter things that only
someone new to that domain will encounter in that particular way.

There's a lot of value in writing about the issue you had setting up your dev
environment or getting your "Hello world" app to work because other people
will encounter those things too.

And just writing about something will help reinforce what you're learning so
you'll learn faster and forget less.

~~~
afshinmeh
Couldn't agree more. I tried this technique several times and simply worked.

When I write about things that I'm learning, it helps me to digest the topic
easier.

------
bjpbakker
Sure it makes sense! Just blog about the things you learn. You will probably
end up blogging about things that are new to other people.

Best example I know of is Julia Evans [1]. She blogs about the things she
learns in areas many people are mot an expert of. I find most of her blogs
very interesting.

[1] [https://jvns.ca](https://jvns.ca)

~~~
randlet
I would also recommend Julia's blog as a good example of the "learn this thing
along with me" style.

------
athenot
No matter how much you know, there will almost always be an expert who knows
more than you. So it can be intimidating.

However the opposite is true: no matter how little you know, there's
guaranteed to be others who know even less about a given topic. So as long as
the content is correct, even if it appears "lightweight", it could be of great
value to others.

------
jstanley
Just start a blog and start writing. It doesn't matter if it's presented
badly. It doesn't matter what it's about. It doesn't matter if it's crap.
Nobody will read it anyway.

(Aside: if the last part concerns you, send it to me. I'll read it! I'll give
feedback if you want. Email address in bio. This is open to all, not just the
OP.)

After a while you'll have the odd interesting thing to write about, and by
then you'll have lots of practice of writing blog posts, and you'll have a
nice blog already setup where you can write your interesting thing.

But you'll never get there if you never start.

------
jesalg
Agree with most of what people have said here. I would just say that for me
blogging is a way to document my journey while learning a technical subject. I
also found myself referencing a lot of my posts months later to remind myself
about how I did something. And lastly, teaching and writing something down is
a great way to improve your understanding of a subject. So don't worry and
write like nobody is reading!

------
evanwolf
I've been blogging for about 20 years. The first myth to ignore is that you're
writing for anyone but yourself. Learn to enjoy the process of telling your
story, of capturing your ideas, of explaining what you learn. Few blog posts
are read by anyone but the author so you'd better get pleasure and
satisfaction and use from blogging. The act of blogging has intrinsic rewards,
from improving your writing skills to boosting your memory. With time, readers
may come. But start bare bones and share your journey of discovery with your
future self.

------
ecesena
Blogging is a great thing! This is my recommendation/algorithm.

1\. think about distribution - you want a platform like medium that helps you
distributing, you want to post on HN (maybe for a few days), you want to tweet
it.

2\. if you use medium, focus on reads/week as your primary metric. your first
goal is to reach 100 reads/week (it's easier than you think). you need to do
step 1. in order to get more reads, which in turn will motivate you to keep
writing. (you can check my own medium [1] - it's really bad, I'm not writing
since last summer, I'm still getting almost 100 reads/week)

3\. make sure you write as you like to read. be concise, focus on the result,
short code snippets / leave the rest on github, don't over explain, etc.

4\. one of the most important things imo. write for SEO. title should be
keyword reach, and make sure to check the keywords of your article with any of
the online keyword counters, e.g. [2]. It's a must to maintain the longterm
reads/week.

5\. as for the topic, don't worry and feel free to be hyper-specific. My most
efficient recipe is:

\- monitor yourself while working (or studying, experimenting)

\- there are times where you search something on google/stackoverflow and the
solution doesn't exist in 1 single page, but you have to combine 2-3 different
results

\- as soon as you have a solution, write it down in a blog post. It shouldn't
take more than 1-2h. (examples among my posts: aws policy, kafka offsets,
airflow on centos, beam on docker...)

Hope this helps!

[1] [https://medium.com/@0x0ece](https://medium.com/@0x0ece)

[2] [http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-
density/](http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density/)

------
jayair
The one big lesson that I learnt while working on something similar to a
technical blog [1] was that the process of writing technical articles slowly
gives you a fairly good understanding of the field. The other part I would add
is maybe write about things that help people with some issues they are having.
Good examples of these are frameworks or concepts that people complain about
being too confusing or libraries that are poorly documented. Also, writing
about technical concepts in a simple way that helped you understand will very
likely be useful to a lot of other people.

Good luck!

[1] Serverless Stack ([http://serverless-stack.com](http://serverless-
stack.com))

------
alexander_u
If you planning do blogging for yourself (studying purposes) it doesn't matter
would it be relevant for others.

It is a good way to teach/repeat/remember something. (for example referensed
here [https://hackernoon.com/the-best-way-to-learn-development-
ski...](https://hackernoon.com/the-best-way-to-learn-development-skills-while-
getting-paid-in-the-process-a31bfb138287))

Maybe you find GitHub's gist usefull
[https://gist.github.com/](https://gist.github.com/)

P.S. Sorry for poor english

------
lucb1e
I noticed that people actually like posts the most when you document what you
learned, not what you already know. Then what knowledge you (and probably
peers) are missing, is very fresh in your memory, and you can bridge the gap
easily (without the curse of knowledge).

And like others said, someone else always knows more anyway.

------
dispo001
I ran almost popular blogs at times (on now defunct platforms) The pursuit of
popularity requires putting a good amount of effort into looking at things
from your current and target audience perspective. (It makes a good face palm
when the 2 float apart) Non of the effort ever produced the real popularity I
was looking for, just a few million page views over their existence. But I
kept working at it for some reason...

Today I have a blog with thousands of postings that enjoys 1 to 10 visitors
every day. 5000 views is a good year. I post videos, gather links and make
citations, write my thoughts along with them [at times] and put some effort
into organizing a large number of tags into sub tags and sub sub tags (at
least that is how the menu unfolds them)

The entire philosophy is to make a blog for the audience that is me. It is
wonderful to structure my thoughts like this. I'm tempted to call it a journal
but really it isn't. If I did a journal I would feel obligated to post on it.

The blog is really nothing more than an advanced version of your bookmarks
menu but in a highly biased way I'm highly amused by the level of technical
sophistication. The entire thing is made of static html. The software parts
only know how to create static html and a static backup is made of pages
before they are replaced with a new version. Non of the upgrades or security
hazards ever had any influence on its existence. Its so rigid there is no
technology to write about on the blog.

Or a long story short:

I think you have exactly the right idea. If you write it just for yourself you
will enjoy every moment of it.

Depending on who you are and what interests you some of your articles might
become popular. Completely ignore it when it happens. Just keep it real. The
only things of value coming from the outside world should be 1) a sense of
responsibility not to post complete trash (for example a chunk of code without
explaining why or what) and 2) interesting comments people leave on your
stuff.

Just focus on the area where no one can match your expertise.

I suppose a link is required. Ill add what I jokingly refer to as my greatest
work: [http://blog.go-here.nl/8616](http://blog.go-here.nl/8616)

~~~
throwanem
I'm not sure why you make that reference in jest. The piece is brilliant.

------
FroshKiller
Are you just looking for an excuse not to do it? People write about things
they don't know much about all the time. Just start. People will read it, or
they won't. People will find value in it, or they won't. No matter what,
you'll get the practice that's required to improve.

------
moomin
Write what you learn. That's a good thing to do. Just get into the habit and
it gets easier. After a while you start to spot opinions and techniques that
just don't have good reference pages. Write one. Review libraries that you
use. If you were thinking of commenting on another article, consider turning
the response into your own article. (When doing so, try to write as if the OP
is twice as smart as you and your best friend. Helps to avoid utterly
unnecessary flame wars.)

Reread everything.

------
EldieTurner
You don't need to be an expert, you just need to know more than your audience.
What I mean is, if you tailor your blog towards novices then no one will
attack you if you don't know everything or even if you've gotten things wrong.
However if you tailor your blog towards veterans in the field then you'd
better know your stuff. The beauty is that as you learn you can teach more
advanced subjects always catering to a group that is where you were a few
months ago.

~~~
wanderingjew
> If you tailor your blog towards novices then no one will attack you...

This is just wrong. You _will_ be attacked. You will be called an idiot.
That's what the Internet is -- a manic outrage of keyboard kommandos
punctuated by pictures of cats.

The default comment on the Internet is outrage. If you write anything, your
commenters will either be spam or people calling you an idiot.

The trick is learning to brush it off and completely ignore this hate. Break
through that and you can start producing interesting work. Most people don't
manage to get to that breakthrough. Good luck.

~~~
AlexeyBrin
> _This is just wrong. You will be attacked. You will be called an idiot. That
> 's what the Internet is -- a manic outrage of keyboard kommandos punctuated
> by pictures of cats._

> _The default comment on the Internet is outrage. If you write anything, your
> commenters will either be spam or people calling you an idiot._

> _The trick is learning to brush it off and completely ignore this hate.
> Break through that and you can start producing interesting work. Most people
> don 't manage to get to that breakthrough. Good luck._

A better approach is to try to learn from the critique you receive. Try to not
take it personally when someone attacks you, instead see if he/she is right
and try to improve yourself.

Also, the _tone_ in which you write your articles will, most of the time, set
the tone of the comments you will receive. If you open with something like
_XXX is a horrible technology /language_ you will be called names for sure. A
better approach is to write in a positive tone, e.g. present a (possibly)
better alternative without bashing other languages or libraries.

------
mike-cardwell
"I'm afraid it won't be relevant for anyone"

You make it sound like something bad will happen if nobody reads it...

Even if nobody read my own blog, I'd still write it anyway as _I_ find it a
useful resource to look back at when I forget stuff.

------
CM30
Well, I think you need to consider a few things here:

Firstly, what you consider dumb or 'not knowledgable' might still be far ahead
of what a lot of people know about the subject, and hence in their eyes, your
perspective would be valuable to have.

Secondly, your experiences are interesting to read about here. I mean, why do
you think people read websites dedicated to their owners learning how to do
something? Or watch blind Let's Plays of video games?

Because seeing someone else put in the effort and get better at some field or
another can be entertaining/interesting in its own right.

Finally, most people are not going to be cruel or judge you for a lack of
knowledge here. Most people are generally pretty decent individuals and don't
mock those less knowledgeable than themselves based on a few blog posts.

So unless you do something incredibly flame baity (like say, arguing a
language you've only just started learning is terribly designed because it's
'too complicated' and claim those who disagre are idiots), most people will be
pretty civil about it.

Don't worry so much here. If you think it helps you learn more or improve your
communication skills, go for it.

------
philk10
Do it

Trying to put what you think you know into words is a powerful way of finding
out how well or not you really know the subject. Bonus: You'll find you hear
from people in the same position as you which gets you encouragement, makes
contacts and keeps your motivation high

Pressing 'publish' on my first blog post was nerve-wracking but really there
was nothing to worry about. Do it

------
danvoell
Yes! People need help at every step. Many times experts aren't good at
assessing the problems that beginners face, because they are second nature to
them. Set up Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools. You will begin to see the
peoples questions that you are answering. Go back and do more research on
these topics and pretty quickly, you will be the expert.

------
replicatorblog
I went from writing a blog to writing for Wired magazine in the space of three
years with no real expertise in my field. The trick was finding an emerging
technology with no real "experts," and making myself one.

In my case it was 3-D printing. I started writing in 2008 when the technology
was really just for industrial designers and mechanical engineers. I was a
user, but had no real knowledge about the industry. So I started reading
annual reports from the big manufacturers, reading research papers from labs
that were doing interesting work, and reaching out to companies that were
using the printers in interesting ways.

Over time I found an audience. RepRap, the homebrew printer, was the hot fad
at the time. Then came MakerBot, the space exploded, and all of a sudden I had
some expertise was in demand. It's certainly not a short path to success, but
I can't really see a downside to blogging for most people.

~~~
jventura
Genuine question, you say that "all of a sudden I had some expertise (which)
was in demand". Have you been able to monetise on your expertise?

------
jeffclark
Regardless of your current, perceived skill level, you're already an expert to
someone else.

Start writing, be awesome, teach others.

------
chubot
Yeah I think it is an easy trap to fall into -- to try to be the "expert".

It's harder to just say what you know, and ask questions about what you don't
know. And change your mind on the blog.

But that's what makes for a better blog. People want to see your opinions
change over time as you learn things. They don't want to necessarily read
advice from an "expert", because even if you are an expert, in 3 years the
"best practice" may change.

Honestly, the most annoying blog posts are those about "best practices". I
skip over those. I want to read people's honest experiences -- learning
something or building something -- and then I'll form my own opinion about the
best practice.

------
vbsteven
Blogging about stuff you are learning sounds like a great idea. Don't write
for anyone else but initially write for yourself. If you write content that is
useful for yourself eventually others will find it useful too.

The thing that somehow keeps me from blogging more is that I want to
learn/blog about so many completely different topics that feel totally
unrelated. Like programming native guis, meditation, cycling, software project
management, devops, monitoring,Buddhism,...

So many topics that I feel don't belong on just one blog. I don't know if I
should start multiple blogs or use categories on just one site or something
else.

~~~
askz
I think categories is a great idea.

You can even make a great (and simple) homepage with topic selection :)

------
gk1
It sounds like you already know the answer:

> I just think it could help me learn more, faster and to improve my
> communications skills.

Two reasons to blog while you're learning something:

1\. When one person teaches, two people learn.

2\. Writing things down helps sharpen your own understanding of that topic.

3\. (Bonus) You may think nobody would find it useful because there are
already so many articles out there about X or Y, but just think about how many
times you've been helped by a blog post or tip from some little no-name blog.
You may not think of yourself as an expert but there are certainly people out
there who know even less than you, who may find your posts helpful.

~~~
liquidise
Your points, at least in my experience, are spot on. I would include one
additional bonus: i find i "hm" and "um" less, and generally communicate
clearer since writing became a regular practice of mine.

------
sixhobbits
Definitely. I was in exactly the same position, and just started blogging
about stuff as I built it.

'Experts' often don't explain the simple stuff as they assume everyone knows
it already. Often, reading about someone's experience as they were first
learning a technology is far more useful than trying to learn from an
'expert'.

An you'll be suprised about being 'attractive for recruiters.' I wrote a tiny
post about setting up a MongoDB and Flask 'Hello World' app. I definitely
wasn't an expert, and the post had flaws, but it still led to a job and a book
deal :)

~~~
michaelthiessen
How does a single post lead to a book deal?

~~~
sixhobbits
PacktPub, and a number of other 'tail end' publishers have editors who scour
the web looking for posts related to books they want to publish. They wanted
"Flask by Example" so asked me if I'd be interested in writing it after
finding my blog post on Flask.

------
carlmungz
Do it.

I recently started writing gists
([https://gist.github.com/CarlMungazi](https://gist.github.com/CarlMungazi))
about the stuff I'm learning whilst reading through the source code of a
framework I use at work.

I'm not expecting to understand everything and I will probably get some things
wrong (reading source code is difficult) but in the short time I've been doing
this I've already learnt a lot.

------
hfsktr
I think so. My blog is a mix of everything (personal, technical, random). It
is a really good way to learn to be a better communicator. Especially when you
have trouble keeping thoughts in order.

It also takes time to get better at writing in general so (IMO) the sooner you
start the better.

I never consider myself an expert (in anything), even though I think I am
competent and get paid to work so clearly my skills are of use.

------
rmetzler
Blog everything that costs you more than x minutes to figure out, especially
when you didn't find a relevant StackOverflow post or similar.

------
unabst
Writing will make you smarter, and writing in public will have you feeling
more responsible for your words and the actions that led to them.

You don't have to be an expert unless you're claiming to be. Just start
writing.

You'll quickly find out if you have a knack for it. Just as the sound of your
voice or your appearance can resonate with an audience, so can the rhythm and
the sentiment of your words.

Of course, most people are not good writers. Writing is extremely hard.

But what most of us have in common is they just can't stop writing. Once you
get into it, it's addictive.

> learn more, faster and to improve my communications skills.

And probably for the above reasons.

Words allow us to see our thoughts objectively. And for others to do the same.

So really, it doesn't matter if you're an expert, or even who you are. It
doesn't even matter if you're that good at it. What matters is if you are a
writer. And there is only one way to find out.

------
Huhty
My team and I operate a SaaS that helps bloggers that have similar issues.

The key is to just start writing. There is no "wrong" blog format. You can
write 50 word blog poetry, or you can write 5000 word essays. It does not
matter. It just needs to be GOOD content.

In the beginning (unless you are already famous), you will likely not have
much audience, so just knowing that makes it a lot easier to not worry about
all the little things like grammar, execution, etc. Who cares if there isn't
too many people judging at the time. And that's a perfect atmosphere to "git
gud!"

As you blog over a few months, you will start becoming better at many things,
writing (grammar and spelling), networking, communicating, etc.

The most important part is to just START. Once you are going, most of it will
come naturally. When you are ready to build an audience, the REAL HARD
work/hustle begins.

------
rebnooch
I a word...YES! he fact is, as human beings in general and individually as
small business owners, we are all unique in one shape or form or another. Our
life experiences are all different, and they are what differentiates us from
our peers and often the competition. The fact is we all have some expertise or
life experience that gives us wisdom from which others can benefit. In turn,
we can use the opportunity to gain the wisdom of others by learning from their
experience, knowledge, and understanding. I address this very topic in my
first business blog post. [https://localbizguru.com/blog/small-business-
blogging-adds-v...](https://localbizguru.com/blog/small-business-blogging-
adds-value/)

------
MandieD
Think of it as a tech diary that you don't mind other people reading. A little
problem that you solve might turn out to be a little problem several other
people have, and Google will help them find your solution to their problem,
making their lives a bit better, too.

------
LiamBoogar
100% - writing isn't about having readers from day one. It's about learning
how to express yourself. I've been blogging for 6 years now. When I started I
had no idea what I wanted to talk about, so I just used it to flush out
thoughts I had.

You will find an audience as you find your voice. What you hae to say will
resonate as you get better at writing (±12 months of consistent writing is a
good rule of thumb to start building a readership).

Forget money. Forget "professional network" even. Just focus on having
conversations with people who are passionate about things you're passionate
about. If you're lucky, you'll interview a hero of yours.

------
goodcharacters
I'd say just do it! It'll help you and you'll become an expert. I've been
trying to post daily for two years without success. 6 days ago I restarted
again
([https://service.goodcharacters.com/daily/](https://service.goodcharacters.com/daily/))
and so far so good. I hope you'll do it right away and don't worry about what
people think. I read so many good comments here so there's nothing for me to
add. Just like taking pictures helps me see/observe; writing helps me focus
and think better. I hope you do it.

------
fapjacks
The point isn't that you're an expert. That can be useful. But the point is
that you're blogging your discovery process. The how and why of what you've
learned. Tech blogs would be fairly dry if they were only a statement of
knowledge (even expertise) that didn't also include some amount of discovery
process. If you really look, you'll see that _most_ technical blogs are of
this type, where someone describes something they've learned, often with a
story. These are certainly the most relatable posts. Just go for it!

------
jonbarker
The best teachers are often not the top experts and vice versa. I am making
money teaching go lessons as an average amateur. Why does this work? Because
there are very few teachers whose specialty is to get novices and beginners to
average amateur level fast. Sign up here: patreon.com/jonbarker . What do I
get out of this? Reusable downloadable/paid content and more exposure. I also
get to think about how to teach anything (meta-teaching), which is a generally
valuable skill.

~~~
jventura
Could you expand on how do you get your students that pay for your lessons?
I'm asking this as someone who is a CS teacher in a local university but would
like to earn something on the side..

~~~
jonbarker
I get paying students by providing free lessons. If they like the result then
I direct them to my patreon page where they can sign up if they like. I am
looking to learn CS from a personal CS coach so please email
jonathan.t.barker@gmail.com. Let's schedule some time to go over mutual
strategies at the very least.

------
lowleveldesign
You definitely should go for it. Writing helps a lot in organizing your
knowledge. I have a technical blog where I publish my small discoveries or
results of some longer research. Each time I write a post some interesting
questions will pop up in my head (even when I feel I know the matter very
well). Additionally, I am really happy when I can give someone a link to my
post that answers his/her question. So good luck and I hope we will see your
blog post one day on HN :)

------
zhte415
Certainly.

There may be 100s, 1000s, even more, or even just 10 people that are in your
shoes. But they're in your shoes.

Writing for others is a great exercise in testing yourself. Your knowledge,
understanding, your motivation. If you get comments or feedback they're not
something to be afraid of, but something to challenge yourself on.

You can develop a network. Be humble in intent, but despite being new, not
overly so. You're part of information dissemination and generating new ideas
for others.

------
jmull
It's completely fine (and will likely help make you better in the fields you
blog about and better at communication in general, which is gold.) Of course
you wouldn't want to misstate your experience or qualifications, but it
doesn't sound like you were contemplatin that anyway.

And if you are able to communicate what you are doing and why, it will be a
help to people who are in roughly the same position as you with an interest in
the same thing, which is great.

------
sharkweek
I think almost everyone should have a blog and write about _whatever_ they
feel comes to mind/on any topic they want. Even if they're not a good writer,
it's another great skill to learn! I find writing to be incredibly
therapeutic.

As long as the expectations are reasonably set that it will 99.9% likely never
develop an audience or make any money, and is instead a creative outlet and a
way to develop your own skills, you'll enjoy it way more.

------
drakonka
I think it is definitely worth it. I blogged daily when teaching myself
JavaScript, being open with the fact that I knew nothing and including things
I'd learned that day and code snippets. It helped recall to get my thoughts
and approaches down in writing, but also resulted in people chiming in with
helpful comments on how I could improve. Eventually as my knowledge grew my
posts actually ended up being helpful for others, too.

------
jdbiggs
I started WristWatchReview.com when I wanted to learn about watches. I was
dumb for a long time and still am but I know a little bit more now. Go for it.

------
dopeboy
Your last paragraph tells me you're in the right mindset already. Surrender
yourself to the process rather than the outcome.

Fire up that notepad and start typing.

------
cphills
There is the saying that the best way to learn is by teaching others and I
have found this to be completely true with my own blogging. Teaching topics
that you recently learned helps to solidify your understanding of the
information because it requires additional research and considerations that
would have never been made if you were satisfied with what you had learned and
decided to move on.

------
verdverm
Do it!!! When you're feeling better about your writing, you can archive old
content or start a new blog. Write because you want to and to share you
learnings. Write about the process of learning, beyond the end result. Take
notes as you figure things out so you can share the missteps along the way. I
think many would find that useful. I did with a glusterfs post I read
recently.

------
dokument
> Does it makes sense to you to start a (technical blog) when you know you're
> not an expert in any field ?

I believe so yes. When I am learning something new myself, it is always great
to follow along with someone else that learned it. There is no reason to leave
out your mistakes or lessons learned. Plus you can come back and correct
yourself but share it with others.

------
roycehaynes
"I just think it could help me learn more, faster and to improve my
communications skills."

Use obscurity to your advantage. Your blog is not known (yet), but if you show
up every day/week and write something you're learning, eventually you'll
become the expert and goto source. This is the way I think about my personal
blog.

------
jasonlotito
> Does it makes sense to you to start a (technical blog) when you know you're
> not an expert in any field?

Yes.

Simply sharing what you are learning, how you are learning, or resources you
are using to learn is useful. And frankly, it also makes you an expert in your
process for learning. No one else is better equipped to share that story than
you are.

------
juliansamarjiev
It's a great idea! Every act of doing, especially new things can only lead to
new skills being developed. It's free, why not! There can only be benefits,
documenting the journey of learning. Search for "Gary Vaynerchuk Document VS
Create", a nice piece (blog, also a video) about the benefits of it.

------
KirinDave
Yes, but prepare yourself. Our community as a whole doesn't reward anything
that doesn't fit with the current trends.

If you're seen deviating from the social norms, you will get push back, and
it's seldom kind or constructive.

For example, I wrote this some time ago:
[http://dave.fayr.am/posts/2011-10-4-rubyists-already-use-
mon...](http://dave.fayr.am/posts/2011-10-4-rubyists-already-use-monadic-
patterns.html)

I received a lot of hate for this post, both on this site and in other ruby
circles.

When I wrote this post: [http://dave.fayr.am/posts/2007-06-07-Multicore-And-
Ruby.html](http://dave.fayr.am/posts/2007-06-07-Multicore-And-Ruby.html) I was
banned from multiple ruby communities and called "the joe lieberman of ruby"
by a prominent rubyist.

I don't mean to pick on the ruby community here specifically, these are just
the oldest so it's least likely to re-open an old argument.

I could point to other examples. I'm considering going back to blogging
myself, but my experience is that negative feedback overwhelms positive
feedback 3:1.

~~~
jstanley
Getting hate isn't bad. At least people care.

Getting ignored is worse. When you've spent hours of your time writing
something up that you think is super interesting, and people can't even be
bothered to read it and send you some snarky abuse. That's the worst.

~~~
KirinDave
No. I'm sorry, but to me this seems like such a childlike mentality: "Any
attention is good attention."

Being ignored is preferable to being ostracized by the community at large. Or
so I thought, anyways. Now I realize that my mistake was publishing in the
first place. There's only negative outcomes, in general. You'll meet a few
good people along the way, and you have to decide if that is worth the trouble
or not, it's a scale of personal experience.

~~~
brthan
But this is not about attention by itself; It's about feedback.

At least you learned that your opinions were considered controversial. You
made someone move out of their comfort zone and reach out to you, if only to
send hatemail. You have impact on other people. That's something.

But those who are writing posts but get no response whatsoever, are stumbling
in the dark. Is the topic boring? Is the post not detailed enough? Too long?
Too pompous? Is there a spelling error half-way through, so horrible, that no
one manages to read the article to the end? Those people will never know.

Of course, you can hone your writing skills by writing for yourself, but
without critique from others, it can only get you so far.

~~~
KirinDave
You can call this success. I don't. Success is writing great code or educating
people. Not provoking bullshit responses.

So like, i wrote an article about learning to code. It was wrong. I was using
outdated research.

But none of my critique of it was about that. I had to discover that later. My
crituque was that it was stupid, or unfair, or anti-blue-collar, or whatever.
I got 0 value, 0 education, 0 fun, and only regret out o the experience. And
it was strictly my diligence on the subject that lead to a correction.

What exactly did I get other than harassment for this process? Maybe you feel
differently, but honestly? I don't care how folks feel. Either we have a
constructive dialogue, or we don't. I don't want non-constructive dialogues. I
can find no consolation in the later kind.

You might look at my content history on HN and say, "But you argue with people
a lot." I do, because I feel obligated to do so. I do not like it or enjoy it.
It is something I have promised to do; not something I want to.

------
k__
Totally.

Most people aren't experts, so if you write about beginner stuff you will find
more people who like your content. If you write for experts only the few
experts will know what to make of it.

I started blogging this year, writing one post every week and the most basic
stuff nicely explained got the most views.

~~~
brthan
Would you mind posting the url here?

------
beat
A friend of mine recently made a cogent observation... he said that the best
teachers are those filled with Imposter Syndrome, who doubt their own
authority on a subject. Real experts have a much more difficult time
communicating.

------
andrestc
Thats the precise reason that I've started my blog,
[https://andrestc.com](https://andrestc.com). I'm writing about things I'm
learning while studying several topics.

------
diegoperini
As long as you put disclaimers like "This part I'm not completely proficient
but I made it work." whenever appropriate, you should definitely do it. You
don't need to be an expert to blog, but only humble.

------
steinarbragi
"I just think it could help me learn more, faster and to improve my
communications skills." This is a great reason to start a blog IMO, it's what
I did. I believe it helped me get my current job.

------
sAbakumoff
personal story : I'm not a data scientist, but I enjoy reading about and
experimenting with relevant topics. Some time ago I was blogging about
this(for example [0]) and it was very interesting and valuable experience, I
never regretted about this. If you have time and desire for blogging don't
miss this opportunity!!

[0] [https://medium.com/@sAbakumoff/angular-vs-react-text-
analysi...](https://medium.com/@sAbakumoff/angular-vs-react-text-analysis-of-
commit-messages-1cda199f3bdb)

------
simonw
Someone who has just learned something is in the best position to teach that
thing to others.

If you are an an expert in a topic it can be hard to understand which aspects
of that thing are non-obvious to beginners.

------
nbrempel
Think of it this way:

No one should really proclaim to be an expert in anything. That title is
reserved for the opinion of others. All anyone can claim is that they are
passionate about a topic – which you are.

------
fiftyacorn
I blog instead of keeping a notebook and recommend it.

I blog for myself - and if its useful to others then thats great.

That said I've got this aim to get 100 readers per day - getting close as
around 80-90 at the moment

------
zackify
I blog because I am not an expert.

Many times, I post about something, someone smarter than me mentions a better
way to do what I just posted.

That right there is the reason I blog. I end up learning more by doing it
monthly.

------
giarc
>but I'm afraid it won't be relevant for anyone

Think of it as a journal instead of a blog then. If you keep up the posts,
you'll be surprised that it will become relevant to others.

------
razeonex
Totally, even if you're not an expert, you can write your own experience on
some topics. And maybe what difficulties you had or would you handle something
to make it easier.

------
lukaszkups
Of course do it! - pretty much I'm doing it with couple restarts since 2011:
[http://lukaszkups.net](http://lukaszkups.net) ;)

------
mathattack
My 2 cents - go for it. Very little downside. Just pick where you write
(Wordpress vs Medium) based on how much ownership you want on brand of the
blog, versus readership.

------
davidgerard
"How I learnt X" seems like a reasonable topic. And you'll definitely be open
to comment from people who find your blog and know more about the subject.

------
numbsafari
Why not? Most people giving presentations at non-academic conferences are
complete neophytes anymore. And people often _pay_ for that priviledge...

------
rocky1138
This pretty much describes me and my blog.
[https://johnrockefeller.net](https://johnrockefeller.net)

------
ingend88
If you are working on a blog or trying to write daily as a habit, please send
me an email (ijinal at gmail dot com)since I am doing a User study.

------
joelrunyon
Blogging can be incredibly helpful (even if no one reads it) because it forces
you to articulate your thoughts clearly + become a better writer + thinker.

Do it.

------
blairanderson
Yes absolutely you will learn about yourself and the tech.

------
tptacek
Yes. Writing is one way to become an expert.

------
markshead
It absolutely makes sense! Over 10 years ago I started Productivity501 writing
on various things I was learning about personal productivity. It has been
extremely beneficial as a writing exercise, but it has also given me a much
bigger presence on the web. A government agency was doing a background check
on me for some contracting work. After they started, the person in charge of
contracting called me up and asked how in the world I had time to do
everything I had done online. They had done some searches and started finding
hundreds of articles I had written over the years, interviews on other
websites, people talking about articles I had written, etc. It made a huge
positive difference in the way they perceived me.

Regarding not being an expert in some technical field: If you are putting any
time at all into learning something, there is always going to be someone
coming after you that knows less than you do. Explaining how you fixed a
problem or set something up is going to be valuable even if it is very simple
and even if you aren't an expert. Do a Google search for "connecting Visual VM
to Tomcat 7" for an example of a post that I wrote simply to remind myself how
to use Visual VM with tomcat. I am in no way an expert on Visual VM, but many
people have found it helpful.

I have a few posts where I've written about a particular problem, forgot about
it, and later Google led me back to my own post when I was looking up how to
solve that same error again. So even just posting an error message along with
a discussion of the details of how you fixed it can be extremely valuable.
Think how often you've found an answer because someone else took the time to
do the same thing. You probably didn't care if they were considered an
"expert" or not.

One last example. Take a look at this article I wrote as an introduction to
state machines:

[http://blog.markshead.com/869/state-machines-computer-
scienc...](http://blog.markshead.com/869/state-machines-computer-science/)

I wrote that post to see if I understood the topic well enough to articulate
it well. I'm pretty happy with its current state, but, despite all the time I
put into it originally, the real work came when it got a bunch of comments
from HN readers. If you scroll down to the comments you'll see people pointed
out all kinds of problems that I fixed or clarified based on feedback I
received. I may not be an expert, but taking the time to write the article,
correct it when people pointed out an error, explain when someone thought they
found an error that wasn't, and answer questions has given me a much greater
amount of expertise than I had before and I'm not sure I could have gotten it
any other way.

All that to say, go for it! Don't let your perceived lack of expertise hold
you back. You'll find it to be an extremely valuable way to grow.

------
crispytx
Do it dude!

------
Kenji
Yes, do it. 100 times yes. While you write blog posts to recap your
experiences, and you do it carefully, you will often find details and answers
that you didn't find before and thus deepen your understanding. Kind of like
taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. So even if nobody reads
your blog posts (and they will be read by _someone_ ), it's worth it.

------
0xbear
Most bloggers are not experts. Most experts are not bloggers. I wouldn't sweat
it. If you have something to say, say it.

------
anotherbrownguy
You should do it just because writing things helps you to see what you know
with clarity.

------
megamindbrian
Blog using jupyter so others can analyze your work.

