DEV Community: Kmucheru

Everything about technical writing gigs!

Kmucheru — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 10:37:56 +0000

Hi geeks!
Despite the fact that technical writers are in great demand, most of them have found it challenging to locate chances and jobs over the years, whether they are full-time, contract, part-time, or freelance. Therefore, there is a need for clarification in the technical writing field regarding portfolio building and opportunity readiness.

Take a look at this blog post as we discuss how to better position yourself for technical writing gigs!

The goal of technical writing is to provide complex knowledge in an approachable manner by selecting and organizing tutorials, instruction manuals, how-to guides, and other supporting materials.

To become a successful technical writer and find online possibilities that will allow you to make money, you need two vital qualities.

However, people often ask if you need coding skills to become a technical writer. The answer can vary. Yes. No. Maybe?

Since most of the topics you will be writing about entail simplifying complicated programming concepts into more understandable forms, you should be familiar with the fundamentals of programming.

The goal of writing a technical article is to impart new knowledge or assist the reader in solving an issue. The majority of the time, you must use code to fix these issues, then give an explanation of the solution that includes screenshots and code snippets.
According to my experience thus far, practically every commercial technical piece I have worked on involves some level of coding.

How to build your portfolio?

You can a have a sample project of whatever you've built, like a web app , CRUD applications or a script. The documentation can involve details of how to launch applications, what it is about and the design thinking process alongside what the application is supposed to solve. This could be done on sites like dev.to and medium.

The content you submit on these blogging sites will act as your online resume. It's possible that readers of these blogging platforms will find your content and get in touch with you.

Although it can be difficult to get started, technical writing can be a lucrative and fulfilling job. You must hone your technical writing abilities and build a solid portfolio that showcases your work if you want to succeed.

Finding technical writing employment can be facilitated by cold emailing, applying to community writer programs, and developing an audience on social media :)

New tip for beginner react devs!

Kmucheru — Sun, 23 Apr 2023 11:27:19 +0000

If you are a frontend developer using react-app (CRA) cease and desist!
I recommend using vite 'npm create vite@latest myapp' and proceed. Additionally, you can use Next.js. Rest assured that works best. Here's why.

Both of them support server side-rendering, which is essential for SEO especially in highly competitive spaces which is not supported by CRA. CRA mainly focuses on the client's side being rendered which doesn't really help when it comes to SEO. Kindly note that to index your site, search engine web crawlers need to read from the server. Another advantage of this is the speed that comes with it. Try create similar react apps using CRA and another using Vite and see for yourself.

Have a fantastic day!

Worry not! AI or Chatgpt will not replace you.

Kmucheru — Sun, 23 Apr 2023 11:15:55 +0000

This trendy tool has shaken people all over the world, me included, at first.

All of my friends who don’t work in tech are actively using ChatGPT or other AI-powered tools for their jobs. I have never seen the adoption of new technology so quickly in my entire life.

ChatGPT knows me better than I know myself. Some jobs that require a group of techies to sit and compile data will be on the decline because AI does all this and more for you. Lucky for us, AI is not self-aware, so our logic, creativity, emotions, and experience can’t be replaced. The havoc that it has caused and succeeded in fueling fear in people’s minds too because of their advanced technology makes them think that the mass layoffs of people in the giant tech companies have occurred in the first few months since the said AI technology was released. But worry not, there’s a couple of reasons you might keep your job :)

Stay tuned for my next post!

Here’s my definitive guide on blockchain… for the dummies.

Kmucheru — Sun, 23 Apr 2023 10:00:16 +0000

Don’t worry, I was right where you were a year ago! So consider me an Ex-dummy, I guess.
(Okay, seriously let’s get into it!)
Introduction.
Blockchain was merely a computer science word for the way that data is organized and shared. A blockchain is a type of data structure that enables the creation of digital ledgers of data and the sharing of such ledgers among a network of unrelated parties.
Well, today it has become another different narrative only that it uses the same tech and know-how around our usual day to day transactions.
Simple definition and explanation
I’m going to try and explain it in the simplest way possible for the newbies. Shall we?
So, imagine a scenario where Person X and Y are friends. X gets into a financial crisis and needs a hefty loan. Y seems to have it all together and X decides to approach him and ask for the money. Y decides to give him a good amount; say $100,000 USD. He says he needed it in cash so he goes and withdraws it all from the bank and gives it to him. They agree on a payment date and life went on as usual.
On the due date, Y asks for his money. X decides he won’t pay the loan and since he didn’t have any traces or record (database) of giving him the money, legal action cannot be taken against him. No paper trail or record of him receiving the money. The bank here being a centralized solution for its clients. This was already a single point of failure. No proof of any transaction to X but was withdrawn by Y.
Yikes!
However, if a decentralized solution such as blockchain would’ve been used, this would be a very easy fix. Let me take you through.
Suppose X and Y were on the same blockchain network and Y wanted his money sent to X, honoring his request. On this network, there is a group of trusted people who can foresee and verify the transaction that it did truly, get to X in case of any problem. They can then approve the request and not manipulate data or details of Y in any way. So that if something could go wrong, Y indeed has information of the person on the other side.
There are two positive outcomes or rather benefits of this:

Your data is completely safe and cannot be changed by anyone, not even the approvers or hackers unlike other distributed databases managed by a centralized institution (e.g Bank).
You can easily trace your transactions and history.

Hope you enjoyed my teenie weenie lesson, more coming.. let me know your thoughts.