I have been thinking to start blogging so that I can add value, help others just like internet helped me to become full stack developer in JavaScript. However, every time I want to write a new article on JavaScript, I could not, knowing that lots of people has already written awesome articles about same topic, feels like I am trying to re-invent the wheel. So my questions is, If you write article on same topic that many has already written, are you still adding value?
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Top comments (23)
You don't need to invent new things. In fact, I bet 99% of what you're thinking at the moment, already presented on the Internet in some hidden corners (StackOverflow, Reddit, Quora, Medium, Dev, etc., you name it).
Wrting a blog means expressing one specific topic in your voice. Your niche in this case is JavaScript tutorial. You can write about one aspect of JavaScript development, your own learning experience, anything.
Regarding the value, personally, it helps me solidify my knowledge, while being a way to entertain myself during spare time. In a sense, it resembles a developer advocate role. Blogging also is a way to bring me oppurtunities, think it as a portfolio of some sort.
Is it valueable to the others? There is no objective answer. Go ahead and write your first article then wait a day, a week, or a month. Look at the traffic and engagement stats after that and you will know if your article is helpful. If the stats are not satisfied, look back and think why your article was not attractive, then learn a way to improve the quality.
Thanks you for helping me understand how I should look at it!
You should be asking yourself: why should I NOT write articles? Who cares if it's been done before. Maybe you'll find a twist to a topic that will spark interest. Or you will enjoy it! People don't read everything I write, but I enjoy writing so it doesn't matter.
Just do it 👊👊
I agree that if you think you are not going to add value then don't write yet another article on, I don't know, what
===means, or how ieee floating point values work.So what you should do is look through the stuff that's out there, find a topic where you can add value, then blog about that.
The reason there are so many articles on the same thing is because a lot of people think they can do a better job, and that's fine. Find something you can do a better job at and go for it.
An aha moment for me was really internalizing "Writing to learn." I got pretty good at Ruby in part because I wrote a lot of it. But not just in isolation, it was because I read a lot as well.
Back then before I began writing articles I thought everything is available over the internet. But as I progressed with software development I faced more errors and the solutions available "are" out-dated. So when I solve a problem, I have to write an article about it.
You should consider writing articles even if the topics have been discussed by other writers. You never know who is facing the problem you are solving.
There is no reason to feel that. So many articles means that It is popular. Javascript has enormous potential for content and even if you repeat 100% of all other blog post, you can still share it with your own words and in a different way.
If you don't copy other people work, there shouldn't be a single problem.
I'm sure that's some of it. If you can be today's dev.to article on
===or whatever entry level topic, then maybe you can encourage people to read your other stuff.For me personally, it's really useful to blog on topics to help me solidify my own learning and understanding. I also write to keep notes for my future self, on topics that I found hard to Google, or reminders where I got stuck and learned a lot from the journey.
Start out by writing for yourself, and you may help some other people along the way!
As a learner, Reading the same topic, it makes me feel like I know correctly.
And It's interesting how people learn and think about a topic that I'm in.
I also write a post about the same topic that I read, I'm getting to know about that topic as writing. I believe all of them might be helpful for someone.
A long time ago, I read somewhere that your blog could just be a self-documenting learning experience. My old blog posts are horrible, but I learned a lot.
Plus, and this is from experience, you may think you know a topic/subject, but you'd be surprised what you may not understand when you try to explain it to others by writing about it. Teaching, conveying a topic is one of the best ways to improve your own learning experience. So why not publish that and share it with others. Worst case scenario, they don't read it, you already got your value from it and that's a win!
There is topic and there is authors stance, many will approach the same article and topic with different ways of thinking, so as long as you have an opinion preferably based on cold hard fact you have the makings of a good post. Don't be disheartened
JavaScript is a language in which one task can be solved in different ways. Therefore, if there is one solution, you can try to create a new one, and perhaps the invented bicycle will be many times better than the existing solution.
I often have to deal with various plugins and libraries that are needed in my projects, but often they lack some functionality or I just don't like the implementation, and then I open the code editor and try to create my own version. This allows me to develop my skills and be sure that if one day I need a solution, I will be able to create it from scratch, without wasting precious time.
And so, if we talk specifically about articles, the presence of a large number of articles does not guarantee that each of them contains high-quality material and/or there are no examples of real code. But there are also good articles, but over time many approaches and ready-made solutions become outdated, which makes the information in the articles irrelevant and it happens that the articles are not updated.
When writing a new article, try to write about something more interesting, and not repeat the most elementary basics of the language, and even more so you do not need to copy other people's articles.
Write articles and try to tell as much as possible about the solution of a particular problem and do not think that you are reinventing the wheel. Perhaps your article will be wonderful, useful and will be able to help other developers.
I was having similar thoughts when I started blogging.
But, one day, I started writing blogs and now I have no plans of looking back.
Yes, my articles are not perfect and don't have a huge engagement but I am improving my technnical as well as writing skills as I go. This helps me learn deeply since I have to do research before publishing an article!
My advice is,
Just start. You will figure everything out later!
When you are writing, you are adding your unique prespective based on your skillset, experience and learnings. It makes your article different from any other article written on the same topic.
There is a famous quote from Stanley Kubrick - my favorite film director that resonates with our condition, I will put it here:
For me, purpose of writing articles is to deepen my understanding by putting into words.
It would depend on what you expect by writing article, but I think you don't have to try to add new value and just write for yourself, and if that benefits to others, that is a bonus