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Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

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Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#51

Post by severine »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #49
wappa wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the three P's?

Yes, which? https://www.google.com/search?q=the+three+p%27s+of+writing&r...

Haha, yeah! I'm having a blast looking at the search results...

Planet, People, Profit. People, process, product People, Process, Performance Management Personalization, Permanence, Pervasiveness Polydipsia, Polyuria, Polyphagia Product, Price, Place and Promotion Preserve / Prevent / Promote Prediction, Protection, Preparation Purpose, Process, Product Protect, Procreate, Provide. Protect, Provide, Profess Pee, Paper, Poo Purity, Patience, Perseverance Provision, Protection, Participation Presence, Promises, Power Of God Piracy, Portability, Profitability Presentation, Planning, Processing

But still no idea... OP, which is it?

Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#52

Post by julianeon »

braythwayt wrote: post #33

Something, something, “Build your brand by writing.” Something, something, “Communicating with words is as important as communicating with code in a team setting.” But moving up Maslow’s Hierarchy, writing about ideas you want to personally explore (a’la pg) is exactly how you force yourself to think those ideas through. It’s valuable in its own right, whether people read them and shower you with the “three Ps” or no…

My experience with low-barrier-to-entry fields like writing is, to make it to the top (which is what you want to do), you almost certainly have to do better, and have more specialized knowledge than, common-sense truisms like: work hard, be a good explainer, that sort of thing.

That's all low-barrier-to-entry knowledge. I'm not going to get much traction on Google with a tutorial like, "hello world" in Python. You have to improve on this low-value stuff to climb the ranks - which is what a book like this can offer.

I would respectfully say the advice you're offering here is a little too unfocused and low-yield, in the age of SEO.

Example: I'm a busy guy. I've written tutorials before, and it's pretty dispiriting to spend, say, 6+ hours writing something substantial (a realistic outlay for an article), only to see it wither away at the bottom of the Google rankings.

Similar example: build a no-name e-commerce store, watch it do nothing except cost you money.

So, you start to search for experts who know what they're doing - say, for e-commerce, SEO. They're not scam artists: they encourage you to write real, valuable content, and the good ones produce that themselves.

But they also say, you have to be more strategic than just like, low prices, placed next to paint-by-numbers articles. You have to search out keywords or areas that haven't been filled yet, and filled those.

And they often know counterintuitive things, that come from hard-won experience.

Example: for e-commerce, they say, you actually shouldn't just throw something up on the blog every week (a reasonable interpretation of the 'write often' advice). Instead, research a good area, then write a high-quality article, that you really invest in, over the course of several weeks. One such article can be worth 100+ low-quality articles which are basically just 'putting this up there to meet my quota for the week'. Internet traffic isn't linear - so it pays to have a strategy that acknowledges this, and builds off it.

That's one reason why I'm thinking of buying this book, since I think the non-obvious stuff is worth more than people commonly assume.

Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#53

Post by [deleted] »

spacedog wrote: post #44

"Throughout college, also I have sought physical engagement outside of martial arts, taking up climbing and lifting." [0] Not to be harsh, but I wouldn't buy a book from someone writing about writing that writes awkward/grammatically incorrect sentences like the one above. Also your background doesn't "checkout". You're writing about writing for software engineers, but how long have you been a software engineer? 3 ye…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#54

Post by dang »

DmitryOlshansky wrote: post #28
DmitryOlshansky wrote: post #3

I wanted to just automatically say booring! But then I clicked the link and I love it, thank you! It’s short, simple and to the point. My personal holy trinity. See you around)

Downvotes? Love it)

Please don't break the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#55

Post by xueyongg »

rhlsthrm wrote: post #32
xueyongg wrote: post #26

Keep writing!! I've personally started my journey into content creation as a software engineer just this year! To be more focused, I found a growing passion for Design Patterns and started writing my learning about them. Hope to share the same passion with you! Keep going pal! Would love to hear some tips from you! Here's my site, and hope it encourages you all! https://blog.phuaxueyong.com/post/2020-05-03-3-more-clo…

This is so cool! I’ve just started myself (still putting together my blog). I really want to learn functional programming, maybe writing about it would be a good way to start on my journey too!

I'm definitely supporting you on this idea! I've learnt so much through "Learn as you teach" methodology. Do share your site once you have started it (:

Oh and personally, as a way to learn my frontend development skill, I also created my blog from scratch through a frontend framework! You can consider that as well

Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#56

Post by Sophistifunk »

spacedog wrote: post #44

"Throughout college, also I have sought physical engagement outside of martial arts, taking up climbing and lifting." [0] Not to be harsh, but I wouldn't buy a book from someone writing about writing that writes awkward/grammatically incorrect sentences like the one above. Also your background doesn't "checkout". You're writing about writing for software engineers, but how long have you been a software engineer? 3 ye…

> this has to stop with people filling the internet with useless content

Good luck with that!

Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#57

Post by braythwayt »

julianeon wrote: post #52
braythwayt wrote: post #33

Something, something, “Build your brand by writing.” Something, something, “Communicating with words is as important as communicating with code in a team setting.” But moving up Maslow’s Hierarchy, writing about ideas you want to personally explore (a’la pg) is exactly how you force yourself to think those ideas through. It’s valuable in its own right, whether people read them and shower you with the “three Ps” or no…

My experience with low-barrier-to-entry fields like writing is, to make it to the top (which is what you want to do), you almost certainly have to do better, and have more specialized knowledge than, common-sense truisms like: work hard, be a good explainer, that sort of thing. That's all low-barrier-to-entry knowledge. I'm not going to get much traction on Google with a tutorial like, "hello world" in Python. You ha…

You’re talking about financial success, or something akin to that. I’m talking about personal development.

Writing is nothing like an ecommerce store to me. It is to you. Thus, my suggestions are not only irrelevant to you, they may be counterproductive for what you think is important.

Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#58

Post by braythwayt »

wappa wrote: post #48
braythwayt wrote: post #33

Something, something, “Build your brand by writing.” Something, something, “Communicating with words is as important as communicating with code in a team setting.” But moving up Maslow’s Hierarchy, writing about ideas you want to personally explore (a’la pg) is exactly how you force yourself to think those ideas through. It’s valuable in its own right, whether people read them and shower you with the “three Ps” or no…

What are the three P's?

Power. Prestige. Pecuniarum.

Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#59

Post by julianeon »

braythwayt wrote: post #57
julianeon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with low-barrier-to-entry fields like writing is, to make it to the top (which is what you want to do), you almost certainly have to do better, and have more specialized knowledge than, common-sense truisms like: work hard, be a good explainer, that sort of thing. That's all low-barrier-to-entry knowledge. I'm not going to get much traction on Google with a tutorial like, "hello world" in Python. You ha…

You’re talking about financial success, or something akin to that. I’m talking about personal development. Writing is nothing like an ecommerce store to me. It is to you. Thus, my suggestions are not only irrelevant to you, they may be counterproductive for what you think is important.

They're more alike than you might think. Amazon seeks marketshare, and a writer seeks mindshare. Personal development, in that sense, runs on parallel tracks as financial success.

As an example: Who enjoys writing something that nobody reads? Who wants to write a tutorial for JavaScript, that's on page 1,000 of the Google search results, and only gets ready by 4 people?

They may diverge at a certain point: maybe you're OK with your writing on VM's to only get read by 3000 people, even if a comparable JavaScript tutorial would get read by 100000 people. But you'd still like for 3000 people to read your VM tutorial. Your writing has to reach an audience to make a difference, to effectively communicate.

On today's Internet, with no strategic thinking, no SEO whatsoever, there's a real risk that the VM article you spent 20 hours developing will only get read by 3 people. That's a depressing outcome, whether your goal is financial or personal.

To be clear, I feel like I have skin in the game here. I write partly for personal development, partly for financial success. But regardless, I still dislike it when I put a lot of work into something and nobody cares.

If you truly don't care if 0 people read what you write, we are definitely in different camps.

If you want your reading to be read - if you want mindshare - then you really do have to be mindful of this stuff.

Re: Show HN: Writing for Software Developers

#60

Post by braythwayt »

julianeon wrote: post #59
braythwayt wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re talking about financial success, or something akin to that. I’m talking about personal development. Writing is nothing like an ecommerce store to me. It is to you. Thus, my suggestions are not only irrelevant to you, they may be counterproductive for what you think is important.

They're more alike than you might think. Amazon seeks marketshare, and a writer seeks mindshare. Personal development, in that sense, runs on parallel tracks as financial success. As an example: Who enjoys writing something that nobody reads? Who wants to write a tutorial for JavaScript, that's on page 1,000 of the Google search results, and only gets ready by 4 people? They may diverge at a certain point: maybe you'…

Shrug. I am not Amazon, and I question that as an example. They sell a lot of terrible but popular stuff. If they were a writer, it’d be clickbait and advertising chum 24/7/365.

I have no interest in writing about “one weird trick to prove that arbitrary Collatz problems are undecidable.”

I like it better when my posts get read, but not because of mindshare, but because I get better feedback, which leads to better personal development.

But I would never write for mindshare at the expense of personal development. The two are in tension more often than may seem obvious.

For example, releasing early and often, even before a post is finished, means less mindshare, but can result in critical feedback earlier in the process, and helps me avoid “over-polishing a turd.”

We each are out for our own thing. You be you, I’ll be me. My advice reflects my goals, which I’m perfectly comfortable sharing. You have different goals, that’s fine too.

But your goals are not universal any more than mine are.

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