Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Engineers Should Blog

insights.excitingrole.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 130 posts

Re: Engineers Should Blog

#61

Post by mooreds »

JCDenton2052 wrote: post #11

No, every engineer should not blog. It is hard enough to find the right information when you have to shift through clickbait and the signal-to-noise ratio is abysmal. If I was interested in assessing someone's caliber, I'd rather look at their Github than their blog. Anyone can write a blog post, not everyone can write good code. Blog if you have some insight into technology that hasn't been already elucidated or if…

> Anyone can write a blog post, not everyone can write good code.

But can "anyone" wrote a good clear blog post that explains a problem, talks about a solution and some of the plusses and minuses of alternatives? Can "anyone" maintain a blog for a number of months or years?

I'd say these are differentiating features.

Re: Engineers Should Blog

#62

Post by Chyzwar »

zzzcpan wrote: post #38
Chyzwar wrote: post #32

Blogging is waste of time. Most of blogs are paid PR/Marketing/SEO content that is low quality click-bait. Like this blog post that is PR piece for company that author works. Engineer should sharpen theirs skills on github. During interview github profile is much larger hiring factor than blog.

> Blogging is waste of time. It certainly is a waste of time for improving your engineering skills, it's a myth. But it isn't for PR, which is very important these days even to get somewhere in software engineering, not to mention for pushing any kind of product or attracting other engineers to hire.

You are either Engineer or not. Writing blog post will have less of effect on your engineering skills than writing code.

Re: Engineers Should Blog

#63

Post by mooreds »

kedean wrote: post #19
graeme wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Post stuff for people to view. Pay attention to what is popular, and what isn't 2. Read stuff aloud before posting 3. Read widely, and pay attention to writing you like. I've built a business off of writing: https://lsathacks.com/explanations/ I got started by writing a travel blog during a yearlong trip. I posted each entry to Facebook. When an entry got a lot of comments/views, I could tell it was better. I also…

The problem doing that with technical writing is that your audience isn't going to be judging you on your writing skills, they'll be judging you on the technical content. OP isn't worried about their technical content, they're worried about their writing skills. The technical audience is going to be affected by writing skills (it'll affect how well points are made, etc), but they aren't going to give feedback on that…

> Just ship it" doesn't work with soft skills.

I disagree! Maybe the relationship is less direct but practicing skills like writing, speaking and networking is one of the best ways to improve (reading about sick skills is another)

Re: Engineers Should Blog

#64

Post by pmarreck »

bloaf wrote: post #54

I'm surprised he didn't encounter the 4th reason for not blogging: 4. The topics I want to blog about are controversial. That is, strong but controversial opinions on certain technologies are just as likely to help you get noticed as hurt you (i.e. get noticed in a negative way.) Even if the topic isn't technically controversial, it can still be a negative. Revealing that you helped {religious minority church} set up…

> That is, strong but controversial opinions on certain technologies are just as likely to help you get noticed as hurt you (i.e. get noticed in a negative way.)

I think the way to get around this is to stick to your best evidence as much as possible to back up your opinion, and try not to stray too far from it. That makes the conversation about the evidence, and not your "out there" take on things. For example, if you're pushing TDD (which has experienced a bit of a backlash of late), you might cite something like https://www.infoq.com/news/2009/03/TDD-Improves-Quality or http://blogs.ugidotnet.org/luKa/archive/2010/06/27/scientifi... which is a list of studies .

Re: Engineers Should Blog

#65

Post by mooreds »

exratione wrote: post #2

I think this misses another equally important reason, which is to do your part to help build the gift economy upon which we all rely in our day to day work. Near every common solution and recipe has been written up by someone, somewhere, and we all make use of these gifts. When you learn to do something useful that other people will likely also have to accomplish at some point in time, write it up. Not only will it b…

> do your part to help build the gift economy upon which we all rely in our day to day work

Great point, but I think most folks aren't going to be persuaded. I asked a tech meetup how many folks had read from stackoverflow the past month. 95% of hands went up. Then I asked how many folks had answered a question. Far fewer, maybe 10%. And I think I was the only person who had asked a question on the site.

The 90/9/1 rule is real.

But I agree, we should encourage folks to join the 1% of content creators.

Re: Engineers Should Blog

#66

Post by katpas »

srcreigh wrote: post #30
pavfarb wrote: post #20

Engineers should blog publicly when they have something to say. Something useful for their colleagues. Engineers shouldn't waste time forcing themselves to blog instead of work just to push their career forward: frequently they just expose they don't have anything to say in extremely unreadable way. What a waste of time for everybody. Soft skills helps you grow as an engineer, it's true, but I think it's important to…

Many times you don't know what's useful to your colleagues until you hit publish. Writing is useful as experimentation that way.

Agreed, I tend to take the number of times I'm asked a question in person by someone new as a signal that a topic is worth writing up.

It's also easier to sit down and come up with a well thought through answer that you can link out when asked again. Opposed to paraphrasing each time and potentially missing key points/clarity.

For example, I wrote this up after meeting lots of clients when I was freelance who were regularly questioning why they couldn't find technical co-founders > https://hackernoon.com/developer-risk-profiles-why-you-wont-...

Re: Engineers Should Blog

#67

Post by nvarsj »

joshvm wrote: post #27
Rapzid wrote: post #23

What do people view as good blogging platforms for this stuff these days? Jekyll on Github? Something else? I'd like to get going fast focusing on content, but of course want good syntax highlighting, comments, and such features.

Jekyll is pretty great (just chuck a disqus block in your footer), there's a real risk of getting bogged down in setting up the 'perfect' system with it and never getting round to publishing anything. I think Wordpress still has one of the most outstanding install experiences, but keeping it up to date is a pain.

Indeed, I think I've spent more time tweaking my jekyll based site than actually blogging. It was a lot simpler when I just had some html pages I edited in Emacs :).

Re: Engineers Should Blog

#68

Post by zzzcpan »

Chyzwar wrote: post #62
zzzcpan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Blogging is waste of time. It certainly is a waste of time for improving your engineering skills, it's a myth. But it isn't for PR, which is very important these days even to get somewhere in software engineering, not to mention for pushing any kind of product or attracting other engineers to hire.

You are either Engineer or not. Writing blog post will have less of effect on your engineering skills than writing code.

But it doesn't matter how great of an engineer you are if nobody knows about you.

Re: Engineers Should Blog

#69

Post by rdtsc »

I just like discussions on HN. I think if I aggregated them all over the years it would make a decent blog. I am lazy. With a blog I think I would just end up not updating it and after 2-3 years it would be abandoned. Is it better to see an abandoned blog or not blog at all...? I don't know I never really considered blogging for the recruiters, which it seems this article advocates.

I also prefer a conversational style so that needs a others who are engaged and want to discuss things, otherwise it seems like I am broadcasting into the ether with nobody potentially ever reading or seeing it. Well technically it would be showing off for the potential recruiters here. But so far I never had problem getting good offers without the blog. I don't have Twitter Facebook, G+ or a LinkedIn. My GH profile is probably how they find me, which is fine so far. Also probably language specific mailing lists.

Re: Engineers Should Blog

#70

Post by bloaf »

mooreds wrote: post #60
bloaf wrote: post #54

I'm surprised he didn't encounter the 4th reason for not blogging: 4. The topics I want to blog about are controversial. That is, strong but controversial opinions on certain technologies are just as likely to help you get noticed as hurt you (i.e. get noticed in a negative way.) Even if the topic isn't technically controversial, it can still be a negative. Revealing that you helped {religious minority church} set up…

I don't know if this is strictly true. I don't deny that blogging about controversial subjects will turn off possible employers or close doors. That is definitely something to be aware of. But you could look at the flip side of that and say that this is actually filtering out opportunities wouldn't be a fit. Much like qualifying leads in sales is something you want to do as quickly and easily as possible, doing the s…

Strictly speaking, the only way my post can be untrue is if "fear of controversy" was not a reason people avoided blogging, or they feared controversy for an entirely different reason than the one I provided.
Post reply on HN