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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Latest comments (23)
When we add new article, or write new book, or upload new YouTube video, we usually assume that somebody has already produced the same or at least similar thing we just posted. And it is not related only to tech content.
But anyway the fact remains - we do not gonna to surprise everybody with our super unique article. The main goal is to remind each other about already existing and known things, share insights, ask useful questions and raise constructive discussions.
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
A lot of good content is paywalled as well. So there's value in creating freely available content.
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:
So try to write unique content.
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!
I asked myself this question before and I came to the conclusion that, depending how your mind is wired, an explanation made by a person A on a given topic can be much more eye-opening and clear to you than another explanation made on the exact same topic by a person B... so, the more explanations and perspectives about an issue there are the better !
Thanks man, this helps. So yeah I do want to help and add value, that is exactly where I was stuck; why write when everything is already written? Clearly won't be adding value. But I understand now (at least I think I do :D ) its about writing in your unique way with lots of real world examples, adding value by putting more effort and teaching not just the concept but your experience along with it.
Teaching is learning. Regurgitating what you already know helps solidify your knowledge, and at the same time you might catch someone who needs to hear the lesson the way you learned 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.
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.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.
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!
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