Introduction
This article was inspired by the last book I read. I will conduct an experiment, taken from the book Deep Work by Cal Newpo...
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I think this book inspired me to start dev.to in the first place. There were a few factors but this book was big.
This all started via @thepracticaldev on Twitter and it would have been easy to keep leaning in on that very popular form factor, but I just didn’t want to keep feeding the beast. I was mostly there for professional development and wanted something better.
I maintain a Twitter presence as part of my work here but I sort of feel like my job is to continue to develop this viable alternative.
Highly recommend Cal Newport’s book. I may re-read it now that I’m thinking about it.
Good example of someone who finds more value in Twitter than me, because I'm guessing it has a positive impact on the development of this platform.
Social media is not all black and grey. We all find different things ;)
And yes, amazing book!
Yes, I do find value, and friendship and lots of other good things, it's just not where I actually want to be spending my time. It's junk food mostly and the value can be derived elsewhere in theory. The only things I truly can't find elsewhere are really indulgences I can do without.
I ❤️ my Twitter friends and connections, but I want to connect with them elsewhere. With dev.to we really feel like you become a better developer when you spend more time here, and ideally, you spend the rest of the time with your work, your thoughts, your family, nature, etc.
With Twitter it's unclear if you're gaining much of anything from spending more time there. It's a FOMO-induced endorphin rush and something we can work towards moving off of. Not to mention the lack of ability for any community within Twitter to moderate and deal with harassment proactively.
Yes, the first rule of productivity is to write an article on dev.to about how you haven't checked twitter for 10 days.
HEY!
...
Touché...
french?
I have been using Twitter for ten years now. I only use it for horrible puns and (rarely) political comments. It is a toy for me, not really a tool. Nothing is wrong with having fun while developing stuff.
Just don't take it seriously.
We all look for different things in the same tools ( or toys ). I got to Twitter because I thought it would be a useful tool. I'm sure it can be, just not for me, not right now. I do think something is wrong with having fun while developing stuff ;) After or before, sure :D
But again, I'm not advocating against anything, I just want people to reconsider where their time and attention is spent :)
For me, it is a tool. It's one of the two ways I can keep up-to-date with my work stacks new updates, features and keep up with the community. I personally dislike Twitter... But it's a fact for this type of work it seems.
About a year or two ago, I dusted off my 10 (?) year old twitter account. I removed all contacts that were inactive for over a year and started collecting tech related accounts. I started to use it more and more and found some interesting resources, like @thepracticaldev so I really enjoy Twitter again
Wow, nice bro. I am also listening Deep Work via audio book. I started listening last week. As developers deep work is important in our field because we are always learning so many complicated things. Thanks for sharing!
Nice, enjoy!
I've been actively using Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and some other social networks sites for many years and I can't imagine my life without them. If you want programming-centric content, you can easily get it on the above networks. Just join programming related groups, follow popular tech guys and girls, and there you go ).
What you say makes sense if you're focussed on your role as a developer and feel that your whole life is a part of that. developer hat discard anything that doesn't make me (look like) a better developer!
My LinkedIn profile is (mostly) a joke. I use Twitter (and more recently Mastodon) because it's entertaining. casual hat lol, it's a video of a cat doing default cat things!
I think where I agree with you is where people have trouble keeping these different hats on different hatstands. That's fine for a lot of reasons, like people having to put disclaimers in their bios saying "opinions are my own and do not reflect those of EvilCorp".
But for the rest of it, for people who don't have trouble differentiating, why not enjoy all the things?