Programmers that don't blog should start right now. You're future self with thank you when your blog helps you getting a better job, earn more money and of course, have an easier time learning new concepts.
- Your blog is your portfolio
- It provides a way to share your knowledge
- You can use your blog is a way to make more money
- Blogging is a great way to help you learn
- Blogging is a way to interact with other programmers
Programmers are often judged by their past work. Blogs are a great way to show prospective employers your work and skills. This is especially true for programmers who are self-taught and don't have a formal education. I have found that employers are often impressed by self-learning programmers.
If you haven't taken the time to blog about your work, you're missing out on a terrific opportunity to show prospective employers what you're capable of. I would stongly recommend that you get started right now. What are you waiting for?
It provides a way to share your knowledge
I'm sure that right now you probably have a lot of knowledge in your head that you would like to share with other people. Blogging is an excellent way to do that.
Here are some of the things that you can share with your readers:
- Your experience
- Your knowledge
- Your opinions
- Your ideas
- Your mistakes
- Your thoughts
You can use your blog is a way to make more money
I believe that most people don't blog because they don't see how it can be used to make more money. Here are some of the ways that you can use your blog to make more money:
- You can use your blog as a form of self-promotion
- You can use your blog as a way to get money from advertisements
- You can use your blog as a way to get money from sponsors
- You can use your blog as a way to promote your products
Blogging is a great way to help you learn
I believe that the best way to learn a new programming concept is to share your thoughts and ideas. Blogging is a great way to do that because you can write about your thoughts and you can also get feedback from the people who read your blog.
When I write a blog post, I often find that I have to think about the concepts that I'm writing about and I can't help but think about them more.
Blogging is a way to interact with other programmers
I believe that blogging is a great way to have a voice in the programming community. Here are some of the ways that you can use your blog to interact with other programmers:
- You can show the things that you have learned
- You can talk about your ideas
- You can share your opinions
- You can get feedback from your readers
- You can help other programmers
- You can offer your knowledge
- You can answer questions
I started blogging
I started blogging, the first step was surprisingly easy but you need to make sure you find a good blogging platform. There were lots of options out there, like medium, which was already established for writing articles, but locked you into their platform and wasn't very coder friendly, especially for code snippets.
I also saw other places that let you post like devto, but those aren't really for blogging, and more akin to things like reddit.
The option I decided on was Hashnode
For those who haven't heard about it, it was one of the newer platforms, and this means that you get the opportunity to ride the wave of growth that comes along with that. If you want to get noticed, I would join in now because I can see this platform becoming as large as freeCodeCamp and other communities specifically for developers.
And the reason this was possible is because they combine of both your own personally blog, alongside a community of developer blogs that show up as a feed. This means that your articles will be recommended to others while also remaining your own. I wanted to give them a try.
I registered the domain adriantwarog.com recently, and wanted to see how this works. The first step was to setup the DNS to point towards hashnode, and then, that's it!
Conclusion
I'll be posting the video for this article on Thursday where I'll go more into depth about my journey in content, blogging and why I think it's important, but hope you enjoyed this sneak peek!
If you haven't already, sign up to Hashnode and try writing your first article, your future self will definitely thank you!
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Top comments (24)
I agree with all points, but what if you simply don't have the time (or even the energy) for blogging? Basically I agree with you that blogging is a great idea, however I disagree with you if you say "ALL programmers should blog" (but, you didn't say that, at least not literally).
No need to daily blog or make your posts super long and in depth. They can be something like notes to your future self on something you just learned that you may forget. Something you had to learn on your own becuase there were no blog posts about it. When he says everyone should blog it doesn't mean that everyone should call themselves a blogger or influencer. I think having just a couple well done blog posts (does not need to be long) can go a long way in showing your communication skills on a resume.
I get your point, you're right, agree to all that ...
I usually post my readme as a blog
or vice versa
If you check out my video, you'll see that I too felt I didn't have time, but when i wrote down my schedule for the day, I found that a good 3-4 hours each day was spent... well, almost wasted away. It's fine to have a balance of time and enjoyment, but I optimised my day a bit more, and found I was more productive and spent less time learning when I wrote it out, if anything, blogging can help you save time!
True, agree to all of that! A lot of time goes wasted unproductively, that goes for most people, myself included ... I think once you're into a flow with a certain structure and rhythm then this will go naturally.
You do have the time. You're already documenting your work (comments, e-mails, actual documentation, commit messages, and so forth) and telling people about what's going on. Blogging isn't much different. What you might lack is the discipline to publish it where you and other people can find what you've written. But you get that discipline through practice.
My blog isn't entirely technical (I'm over halfway through my career, so I have other priorities), but every Monday is a "developer journal" going through the things I've been working on (sometimes with code samples), and when I've learned something, my notes become a Wednesday post. An occasional other post is sparked from conversation on sites like this.
Great article with all the bases covered. The biggest one for me is the learning part, I am constantly surprised at where the gaps in my stored knowledge are when writing an article...you know that "I know what I want to say but I can't quite remember the term / reference".
I find that writing has helped me retain more information that I previously would have looked up by instinct! ❤
I would add that most people who blog will not get direct revenue from it, but the opportunity it brings is where the value is. Just how authoring books rarely brings in much income, but being the person that wrote the book on x brings job opportunities that may not have been there before.
Indeed, its a long term investment into yourself and possible futures
Another piece of good advice is to proofread one's blog posts. For example, the second sentence to this post needed editing. I saw other errors in a few other places, too.
Original:
"You're future self with thank you when your blog helps you getting a better job, earn more money and of course, have an easier time learning new concepts."
Fixed:
"Your future self will thank you when your blog helps you get a better job, earn more money, and, of course, have an easier time learning new concepts."
I'm not trying to be mean or anything. I'm just giving some helpful advice.
As a non-native English speaker, should I write a blog in English to have a broad audience of developers? Or should I write in French, making this easier for me but with the risk of having too few visitors?
I think blogging is necessary. It is a good way to act as a secondary business card when you network and meet new people. You don’t need to have a lot of stuff on it, even 3-4 projects on the main page would suffice. After all, it is all about establishing first impression, the landing page of your blog would effectively done all you need to do as your CV.
I agree. Couldn't have said it better 🙌 Blogging has helped me clear my concepts and fill the gaps in my knowledge. As an added bonus, interacting with the programming community is such a joy.
:D
Great article, Adrian :)
Thanks!
Great article Adrian, I totally agree! I started to blog only because my coding bootcamp required it but then I began to realize I was enjoying it and it was helping me learn technical concepts better so I kept doing it. I'm glad I've stayed generally consistant with it.
I didn't know HashNode. Sure I will take a look.
Can we monetize it?