The best way I've found is to blog what you learn. There is always somebody who is learning what you are learning and is a day behind you. They will benefit from your "experience" and being able to teach what you just learned means you know it well. 5 years and I haven't stopped learning. Http://maxdemarzi.com
Engineers Should Blog
81–90 of 130 posts
Re: Engineers Should Blog
#82One of the rarest and most under-appreciated skills in tech is the ability to explain things. As an industry, we mostly focus on building and selling, and the twain don't always meet. Many of the builders have deep and excellent understanding of the tech they work with; many salespeople are excellent at persuading customers to do x. But there's a very important and underused bridge between insiders who understand, an…
Unfortunately, I don't think blogging improves this skill unless you get someone good at writing to review every post you make.
I read (or rather, try to read) plenty of poor technical writing linked on HN and Lobsters every week. Because a lot of people blog as a form of self-documentation and to improve their "personal brand" activity, people rarely give or listen to writing criticism.
Re: Engineers Should Blog
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's my biggest problem, how do you improve your written communication without an editor? You can do the same thing over and over and call it practice, but without a reviewer how will you magically improve this skill?
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…
> Pay attention to what is popular, and what isn't
So poorly written, navel gazing, clickbait titled, troll bait articles about how X tech sucks and we used Y and here's what happened next™ posted on Medium?
I'd rather not blog at all if what's popular on HN is our goal :-)
Re: Engineers Should Blog
#84Reading this, at least from my perspective, makes it seem like the author asks three questions, then provides an answer that doesn't really actually answer the three questions.
In particular, from my own experience in blogging/twitter etc, getting an audience is a really hard thing to do, so much so that years later I haven't succeeded yet.
On top of that, what about people who don't blog because they feel they have nothing interesting to say? Why should I write about my experiences with moving to modern javascript practices when 500 other people have already written the same thing, said all the same things I would have and actually have an audience that gives a shit?
Re: Engineers Should Blog
#85I agree. Such an easy way to market yourself and get your name out. Also, being able to write clearly is an incredibly useful skill to have.
Re: Engineers Should Blog
#86Engineers 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…
> Engineers should blog publicly when they have something to say. Something useful for their colleagues. This sounds a lot like saying, "You should only learn to code when you have something useful you want to build. Something useful for other people". You can't write a good blog post without having already written some number of bad ones. If you think you might someday have something to say, you should practice blog…
> You can't write a good blog post without having already written some number of bad ones.
To add to this, I'd say: if you don't have a writing habit, the barrier to actually writing something when you do finally have something useful to say will be incredibly high.
I am willing, however, to give the GP the benefit of the doubt because they said "Engineers should blog publicly when they have something to say", not "Engineers should blog when they have something to say". Practicing writing does not mean that you have to publish everything.
Re: Engineers Should Blog
#87Engineers should stop telling other engineers what to do :)
Re: Engineers Should Blog
#88Engineers 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…
> Engineers should blog publicly when they have something to say. Something useful for their colleagues. This sounds a lot like saying, "You should only learn to code when you have something useful you want to build. Something useful for other people". You can't write a good blog post without having already written some number of bad ones. If you think you might someday have something to say, you should practice blog…
Embrace it like Philip Greenspun. The tag line to his blog: "A posting every day; an interesting idea every three months..." (Which is about right. Most of his posts these days are trolling but there are still gems in there.)
Re: Engineers Should Blog
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Engineers should blog publicly when they have something to say. Something useful for their colleagues. This sounds a lot like saying, "You should only learn to code when you have something useful you want to build. Something useful for other people". You can't write a good blog post without having already written some number of bad ones. If you think you might someday have something to say, you should practice blog…
Perhaps one should refrain from posting their practice posts, then. Write bad blog posts to get better, sure, but it does not need to be published by necessity.
While I find value in writing things I don't ever intend to publish, that's a different sort of writing. For me, at least, a post written without intent to publish will be very different from a post written with intent to publish.
Writing a post without intending to publish is similar to writing pseudocode, never intending to compile. With great discipline one can learn to write good quality code without compiling it, but if you intend to compile, you actually think differently and produce better quality code.
Re: Engineers Should Blog
#90Ok, I'm kind of cynical when a recruiter says "You should blog! It will make it easier for us to find you." It sounds like the hunters suggesting to the game wardens that deer would be better off if you painted them international orange. :-)
I certainly agree that public comments on the internet can help people get a sense of who you are, but just like sharing on Facebook or any other infinitely long lived expression of opinion there is also a huge down side to it. A number of good engineers have been fired over the years by blogging an opinion that their manager didn't like or mentioning an activity that their employer felt violated the inherent NDA in place in any employee/employer relationship.