Why it's awesome for new developers to blog as they learn

Writing about what we learn provides us with lots of incredible benefits both ourselves and to our awesome community. Many of us write notes as we go so why not share it others as well?

Before I wrote my first post I honestly thought that I disliked writing but I wanted to give it a go. I used to think that I wasn't qualified to teach others. That I didn't know enough to write a full article about a certain topic.

I could not have been more wrong.

Not only did I enjoy writing about web-development but I learned so much in the process. I was wrong and now I want to encourage others who might think the same.

Let me explain how writing a blog can benefit everyone and why we need new developers to help teach others 🙂.

Why Blog

1. You will learn more from writing about it
2. You can explain topics how you would have liked them to be explained to you
3. You will help teach other developers
4. It looks great to future employers
5. You will meet a lot of awesome people
6. Your writing and communication will improve
7. It is a lot of fun if you make it so

1) You will learn more from writing about it

There are two main reasons why you will learn more. Firstly you can pick exactly what you want to write about. You might choose a technical topic that you're not familiar with and so you will have to do a lot of research in order to write about it well.

Or maybe you pick a topic that you think you know well. But when you try to explain it you realize that you don't know it as well as you think. It's happened to me on many occasions. And that's a great thing ✔.

You want to find out the things you don't know because that's how you improve. As developers the learning process never stops.

It's not about saying 'I've learned to code' but instead ask yourself 'What can I learn next?'.

2) You can explain topics how you would have liked them to be explained to you

There are a lot experienced and knowledgeable developers who write awesome blogs but we need developers of all levels to create content because they can sometimes simplify topics in a way which others might not.

Let's say I've just become comfortable with the basics of the JavaScript library React. I know why we have class components and functional components and the differences between them. There are others who might not be sure. They see some tutorials where components are written with classes and others written as functions without much of an explanation.

If I had also experienced similar confusion then I would be best placed to explain the history of classes and the introduction of hooks before just diving in to writing stateful components.

As writers we need to write content that is suited to our audience and sometimes those who have recently been though the struggles of a topic are the ones that are best placed to teach it 👍.

3) You will help teach other developers

There will always be new developers taking up coding that rely on community created tutorials and articles. As you progress there will be more and more developers further back in the learning process than you.

This means that even if you have just started out there will be others that would love to read the content you create.

If you start writing on one of the many amazing community blogging sites such as Hashnode or Dev.to your content is guaranteed to be seen. Start small with a focused article that tries to solve a particular issue and your content will be appreciated by others.

With consistency your posts will reach a larger audience and you will be helping to teach the next wave of developers and bloggers.

4) It looks great to future employers

Writing will help you to prove to employers that you know what you claim to know. Especially for those of us without a CS degree. You could link to your blog on LinkedIn to help enhance your profile and make it stand out.

If an employer asks you

'Tell me what you know about arrow functions'

then you can confidently say

'Of course! Arrow functions are.... I also wrote an article for my blog all about arrow functions that was well received if you would like to see it.

It might just help you stand out from the crowd 😎.

5) You will meet a lot of awesome people

The web-development community is by far the most amazing and supportive community I have been a part of. Without this I probably would never have started this blog.

The web-development community have welcomed me and made me feel at home especially over on Twitter. Since I started with my blog I have been able to meet a lot of cool people. They have also helped me along by providing ideas on what to write about.

My first post all about breaking down React State which became a featured article was recommended by someone over in our twitter community 👏.

Being consistent with your writing will lead to interactions with other developers where you can share information with each other. Everyone benefits from sharing valuable information with each other.

6) Your writing and communication will improve

As long as you're consistent and you want to get better, you will! I think one of the main reasons we are hesitant to blog is that we have a lack of confidence in our writing.

There are lots of very successful blog writers who aren't great with the language they write in. And that's OK! ✔ What better way is there to improve your writing than to tackle the problem head on.

Think back to your coding skills in the first month and how they compare to now. You've probably improved a lot. It doesn't matter how great your coding was in the beginning. It only matters that you made the commitment to start.

7) It is a lot of fun if you make it so

Write about topics you enjoy and you will see that it is a lot of fun. Don't write about things that you think will bring you views. If it doesn't go well you will be annoyed with the result and end giving up. It will show in your writing if you're heart isn't in it.

Instead write about things that will bring you enjoyment or allow you to learn something new in the process. And if you can bring out some of your personality into your writing that's even better 🙂.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading! Now get writing

I hope you enjoyed the article and are now inspired to take up a blog. Let me know if this has helped you make the jump. If you know anyone that is thinking of taking up a blog then feel free to share the article around.

I'm active over on twitter @Kieran6dev so come and say hi 👋. Thanks for reading! Until next time