Don't lecture people online on what they should or shouldn't do. It makes you sound like an asshole
Somehow, you didn't take your own advice.
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Writing about what you learn pushes you to understand topics better
101–110 of 167 posts
Re: Writing about what you learn pushes you to understand topics better
#102I started writing a book to teach myself Rust but ended up teaching myself how to write. I've found that I have a much deeper understanding of the language now because I have to actually explain things in detail, and not just get the program to compile and move on. But I would say that the biggest side effect has been learning to write well. That has turned out to be much more impactful to my career than learning Rus…
> That has turned out to be much more impactful to my career than learning Rust. Could it be that people assume you know rust if you write a book about rust?
I would also assume so but then I suppose that it's basically impossible at this point to avoid a leetcode interview where you have to prove that you can solve Fizzbuzz, even if you've literally written a book on the language. But my goal wasn't to get a job writing Rust in the first place.
Re: Writing about what you learn pushes you to understand topics better
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. Without the pressure and scrutiny of publishing, you won't scrutinize your own ideas. Others won't scrutinize your ideas and give you feedback.
I would be inclined to agree if the author had enabled comments.
In my experience I pay attention to every social media place my stuff gets posted. I learn a lot that way.
Re: Writing about what you learn pushes you to understand topics better
#104I remember an old PhD comics strip where a professor says “Remember kids, the only difference between fooling around and science is writing it down.”. In the context the goal was obviously for it to be funny but it is actually a very good and wise advice.
The only difference between fooling around and science is p < 0.05 ?
No, because p The results dont have to be conclusive for science, they just have to be documented.
Re: Writing about what you learn pushes you to understand topics better
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a paradox. I'd rather no one reads my ramblings, but then why am I writing them? Somehow I feel it is a shame that most of my inane ideas only exist in my head. The freeing approach is just to write, know you're a terrible writer, and persevere. I guess that's how you become good, eventually, or maybe you get a following of other idiots that agree with your dumb thoughts :-)
This is why I don't blog, and instead take notes that are publicly accessible. They're for me to refer to, but others may find them useful and I may want to share examples with my coworkers and friends, so I make them public. EG: https://danielhoherd.com/tech-notes/exiftool/
This is super cool.
Re: Writing about what you learn pushes you to understand topics better
#106I remember an old PhD comics strip where a professor says “Remember kids, the only difference between fooling around and science is writing it down.”. In the context the goal was obviously for it to be funny but it is actually a very good and wise advice.
That's in the context of recording data from experiments, though
Not only. Just like when actually coding to implement a given specification you find yourself refining the specification and discovering edge cases that weren't taken into account etc., when you actually start writing for other you need to make everything clear and to actually develop your thoughts, and it also "debugs the science", if I may. See also the concept of rubber duck debugging which is another instance of the same kind of effect.
Re: Writing about what you learn pushes you to understand topics better
#107I started publishing "TIL" posts a few years ago and everything in this post here resonated 100% with my experience of writing those. The great thing about TILs is that once you form a solid set of habits around them they can be extremely quick to put together: the majority of my TIL posts take between 15 minutes and half an hour to write. I make extensive personal notes on everything I'm doing (in GitHub issues thre…
I think it’s a great habit and an effective method for consolidating what one learns … at least until someone cheats themselves using GPT to write up a TIL essay.
Re: Writing about what you learn pushes you to understand topics better
#108I have learned so much writing my Substack. I refer back to my articles all the time when I need a refresher on certain topics. Plus it’s another feather in your cap when you are in a job interview. If you say you know xyz and you can point to a place where you wrote about it, it lends more credibility. I too have struggled with making writing a habit. But I’ve overcome it in a few ways. 1. I make a clear goal for th…
I will form my thoughts as a reply to you, since it's in a similar vein. To me, writing is always a tedious process. I can ** out articles quickly, but 52 articles a year? This reminds me of people who say "Read a Book a Day"^tm. If you are really writing articles on topics you have a weak understanding of, while working full time, with the articles being somewhat original/new, how in the world are you writing one a…
I have a full time job so writing 52 technical articles a week would be too much. To give you an example of the type of articles I've written, here are the last 10 articles I've created.
1. Berkeley’s Digital Legacy: The Evolution of BSD and Its Influence
2. Tracing the Lines: From the Telephone to Unix
3. My experience with Pop!_OS Linux Distribution
4. Enhancing Emacs Efficiency with Xah Fly Keys
5. Learning to Touch type again
6. The Complexity of Open Source and AI
7. Racket: The Lisp for the modern day
8. The XML Connection: How docx and odt Share Common Ground
9. An Ode to Emacs. The Greatest Operating System
10. How to Fine-Tune Your ChatGPT Interactions for Better Results
I try to create a backlog of easier articles that I can queue up. Then when I have a few weeks worth of articles in the pipeline, I can work on one deeply technical article that will take more than a single week to write. I've been pretty busy these past few weeks, and am about to go on vacation so I'm working on some lighter stuff. I just finished two back to back posts on Operating Systems (Unix and BSD). The next one will be on Plan 9, but as that one will require more extensive research it will be put on the back burner for a bit until I get through the rest of August.
I read a lot of stuff on Hacker News, Substack, and Lobste.rs, Tech Twitter, and Mastodon, so those are great sources of things to write about. I have also spent the last couple of months updating my Emacs, switching up my keyboard, and focusing more on ergonomics, and those experiences ended up being articles. Once you get into the flow of it, you start seeing all sorts of things to that you can write about.
> "Here is the 5001st article on how FastAPI routers work", "Here is how z-level in HTML works!" or something.
I have done articles like that. An example of that is my article "A soft introduction to working with XML in C#" I've found that the people that are subscribed to my newsletter enjoy my "voice" and the way I write thing. They don't mind a simpler article every once and awhile. I wrote that article around the time I was working with XML in C# and I refer back to it every time I need to refresh myself. It's great because all the tutorials work for my workflow and are in my words so it's those articles end up being the easiest to follow!
Re: Writing about what you learn pushes you to understand topics better
#109I started publishing "TIL" posts a few years ago and everything in this post here resonated 100% with my experience of writing those. The great thing about TILs is that once you form a solid set of habits around them they can be extremely quick to put together: the majority of my TIL posts take between 15 minutes and half an hour to write. I make extensive personal notes on everything I'm doing (in GitHub issues thre…
You mister Simon, you are the inspiration! For TILs and Py modules.
I wonder what's drives you to make so many Py modules? Do you see reusing modules for your own projects or do you have some other grand plan?
Re: Writing about what you learn pushes you to understand topics better
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
I will form my thoughts as a reply to you, since it's in a similar vein. To me, writing is always a tedious process. I can ** out articles quickly, but 52 articles a year? This reminds me of people who say "Read a Book a Day"^tm. If you are really writing articles on topics you have a weak understanding of, while working full time, with the articles being somewhat original/new, how in the world are you writing one a…
I have a full time job so writing 52 technical articles a week would be too much. To give you an example of the type of articles I've written, here are the last 10 articles I've created. 1. Berkeley’s Digital Legacy: The Evolution of BSD and Its Influence 2. Tracing the Lines: From the Telephone to Unix 3. My experience with Pop!_OS Linux Distribution 4. Enhancing Emacs Efficiency with Xah Fly Keys 5. Learning to Tou…
I just read the touch typing article. I do know what you mean by "people just enjoy things in a particular voice" and I agree with that, but I guess my main "complaint" is that you probably also didn't learn much from the touch typing article, nor introduce anything new. That sounds like a critique, but it's genuinely not - probably 90% of popular content is rehashing. I am just emphasizing that it's where my issue lies - to really LEARN something is very tedious and potentially not that interesting to the mass audience.