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Discussion on: I want to start writing about development, but I’m a beginner. Is this is a bad idea?

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marissab profile image
Marissa B • Edited

I want to post about the problems I'm facing, the solutions I'm coming up with, and the different concepts I'm learning, but I don't know if I can speak with enough authority on these topics yet to do so.

So don't speak with authority about it. Speak to what you're doing and showing your process instead.

If you spin it as "This is the learning process I'm taking and what I found - what feedback do you have?" I think it'd do great. You'd be framing it as seeking advice and sharing your experience instead of coming off like you're trying to be an expert on something. People working on cars do this all the time on older forums where they find an issue, try a couple options, then present what they did and ask what others have done. You don't have to be an expert on a specific car part to try out a couple things and bumble around to make things work better. Same goes for programming.

Asking for feedback is a good way to engage the experienced audience too. Even if you solved your problem and met your requirement of making the thing work, someone else could chime in with "Hey, next time give (this other method) a go" or "You may want to look up (other thing) to try". Even just getting the name of something to Google can kick you way ahead in progress.

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matthewsalerno profile image
matthew-salerno

Yup, just put a big disclaimer up so people don't take you as an authority, then go about it normally.
I have seen some amount of rudeness towards less experienced writers but normally that's for posts that write as if they're an authority. As long you frame it as a learning process, and not a how to or definitive resource, you should be fine.
Of course it is the internet so you should expect some amount of hate or trolling even on a nicer community like DEV.

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darkwiiplayer profile image
𒎏Wii 🏳️‍⚧️

What generally annoys me is when people have little to no knowledge of something but feel the need to write a tutorial on it which is the exact same content as half a dozen other tutorials or, worse yet, just a copy of the documentation.

Looking at you, "javascript array methods" articles!

Framing the same content as "Here's what I learned about X, did I get anything wrong?" or "I had this problem, found these tutorials, and here's what I ended up doing" is a huge improvement.

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marissab profile image
Marissa B

Agreed on the repetitive newbie tutorial bit! That's a great highlight.

It's more fun and interesting to read how others learn and sometimes bumble through things, plus it's a better opener for discussion. The more grizzled veterans can chime in with "Hey that's how I learned it!" or stuff like I mentioned above instead of breezing over yet another copy-paste tutorial article.