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What to blog about

simonwillison.net

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Re: What to blog about

#71

Post by heavyset_go »

guynamedloren wrote: post #6

My problem is I get stuck at the very last step: publishing. I take copious, detailed, organized notes for everything I do (house renovations, DIY projects, programming projects) with a robust system that I've fine tuned over the years. This habit has proven to be invaluable for me, as I continuously reference notes and learnings from many years prior. However, by the time it comes to editing and publishing, I've alr…

I have a /notes/ section on my site just for this. They're living documents that get updated and edited over time, they're never really "done". Turns out people get value from these even if I wouldn't describe them as real articles.

Running something like TiddlyWiki or Wiki.js for notes also helps with the publishing aspect, all you have to do is make your wiki accessible from the wider internet and you're done.

Re: What to blog about

#72

Post by heavyset_go »

markx2 wrote: post #10
theideaofcoffee wrote: post #3

In the words of the venerable AvE: "Make cool shit, put it on the internet." Have I been able to follow that? Not really, too many other things going on but I think the sentiment is nice.

> In the words of the venerable AvE: "Make cool shit, put it on the internet." Have I been able to follow that? 'cool shit' who defines that? The reader. 'cool shit' could be about how you feel in a relationship, how you just cooked The Best Food Ever, how your pet made you laugh, a joke, an insightful sentence / paragraph that you read, something you saw, something you felt. Just write. If it is useful to you, then…

I interpreted that differently. 'Cool shit' is whatever the author thinks is cool. The internet lets other people who are interested in the same stuff find the stuff that you find cool and wrote about, too.

Re: What to blog about

#73

Post by kixiQu »

Cupertino95014 wrote: post #53
kixiQu wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no stories of blogs going viral and the authors becoming celebrities in the linked post.

One pedantipoint for you. "These stories" -- I guess one could interpret that as an assertion that the stories are in the linked post. If you're looking for something to nitpick.

To what were you responding?

Re: What to blog about

#74

Post by heavyset_go »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #68

An addition that most posts, including this would benefit from: Be incredibly kind when judging other people for their projects . What goes around comes back around. IMO a lot of the problem is not in finding things to blog about, but the fact that the Internet hive mind will casually toss off incredibly unkind criticism about your projects. I remember https://harthur.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/771/ making the rounds a…

I've experienced this when some of my personal projects made it on HN and Reddit. While they were 90% positive experiences, it was also a lesson in patience to refrain from correcting people who made drive-by criticisms and assumptions that were factually wrong, which they'd know if they had worked in the same domains the projects exist in or had read the READMEs.

Even then, those were good experiences, because it let me appreciate and discern between constructive criticism and criticism from those who don't really care and just want to complain on the internet.

Re: What to blog about

#75

Post by shayneoneill »

I worked at a company with a senior (Ex Amazon old dude with a PhD in com-sci and math) coder who every day would update an internal blog about the code he had written that day.

Although it was occasionally a bit difficult to search, it turned out to be amazing documentation for the code he was written. Just volumes of text about what was a fairly complicated subsystem involving machine learning and a bunch of stuff like that.

It gave an insight into the thinking process of someone with 30 years of experience solving some insanely complicated problems, but he insisted it was mostly for his own benefit to organize and clarify his thoughts about a giant project that was changing rapidly as business pressures piled on (The joys of startups).

I really ought do the same.

Re: What to blog about

#76

Post by im-a-baby »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #68

An addition that most posts, including this would benefit from: Be incredibly kind when judging other people for their projects . What goes around comes back around. IMO a lot of the problem is not in finding things to blog about, but the fact that the Internet hive mind will casually toss off incredibly unkind criticism about your projects. I remember https://harthur.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/771/ making the rounds a…

People who hate on projects are those that have never attempted to create something on their own. It's kind of like how the easiest person to sell something to is a salesman. Most people's default reaction to anything is scepticism. People who have tried to create something on their own, and undoubtedly encountered other's scepticism, can skip the apprehensive stage and get to the meat of a project with an open mind.

Re: What to blog about

#77

Post by didgetmaster »

I have a project (general-purpose data management system called Didgets: https://www.didgets.com) and I also have a blog (https://didgets.substack.com) that is a mix of information about my project and also about my general thoughts on various data management issues.

Anytime you put your ideas or projects before the public, you run the risk of criticism and/or ridicule; but don't let that stop you. If your project can truly do some amazing things (like I think mine does), eventually it will attract some interest. Even if someone uses it just to try and prove you wrong, take that as a win.

Re: What to blog about

#78

Post by samsquire »

I prefer reading someone's writeup than the code to implement the software product. With the write-up I can learn how the software works. The code is too hard to read to fit together the puzzle.

I read whitepapers to learn what others learned. I keep a list of whitepapers I am interested with on my GitHub profile.

I want people to spend lots of time writing what you did on GitHub to explain why your project is useful and how to use it. Some GitHub README.md are really good and explain the software well. Some libraries place documentation in the README.md

I journal computer software ideas and thoughts out in the open on GitHub. I am up to 700+ journal entries and they are in markdown and numbered paragraphs.

My interests are parallel computing, database internals, distributed systems, multithreading and scalability and futuristic software.

Links to my journal

https://GitHub.com/samsquire/ideas

https://GitHub.com/samsquire/ideas2

https://GitHub.com/samsquire/ideas3

https://GitHub.com/samsquire/ideas4

Re: What to blog about

#79

Post by antipaul »

… just don’t then try to make money off it.

There’s too much crap when I search for actual high quality content due to SEO and stuff.

(I’m not saying don’t blog. Definitely, it’s as useful as described in this post, and we’re not running out of storage space.)

Re: What to blog about

#80

Post by derekzhouzhen »

twic wrote: post #2

> It’s easy to get hung up on this. I’ve definitely felt the self-imposed pressure to only write something if it’s new, and unique, and feels like it’s never been said before. This is a mental trap that does nothing but hold you back. No! It's absolutely correct and considerate! This advice to write a blog even if you have nothing new to add is why the blogosphere is now absolutely overgrown with low-content dross, a…

You are mixing authenticity and uniqueness. The stuff you blog about doesn't need to be unique; it only needs to be authentic.
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