Programmers have it easy when it comes to writing online - Here's how

Now don't get me wrong - writing is hard.

But when it comes to writing for your professional community on the Internet - we, programmers have a HUGE advantage.

The software development community built the Internet and adopted it before anyone else. Therefore, it is the most mature community on the Internet.

By simply being a part of it, you get to enjoy access to 3 systems, unique to this community.

3 Systems that give you 3 unique advantages

1. Resources: This community likes to share its knowledge for free on the Internet in the form of articles and tutorials.

   This gives you access to important resources that allow you to teach yourself.

2. Demand: This community knows to surf the Internet to look for solutions when they get stuck or when they want to learn something new.

   This gives you demand for any tutorial you write - no matter how specific. You can be sure there are developers who'll be looking for it.

3. Market: Most importantly, this community has built online publications to make it easier for programmers to share their knowledge.

   They accept articles from newcomers and share them with their huge audience of hundreds of thousands of developers. This means you don't have to be afraid of shouting into the void.

Reducing barriers of entry

Together these 3 systems of - Resources, Demand and Market - work in your favour to reduce the barrier of entry to writing on the Internet.

No other profession, be it marketing or accounting, enjoys these 3 advantages when it comes to writing online.

The presence of these resources is reason enough for you to be motivated about starting your online writing journey.

So, be a part of something bigger than yourself and contribute to this incredible trend of programmers helping other programmers.

Popular places for new writers to share their programming chops

Here's a list of a few places that accept contributions from beginners and share it with their huge follower bases (links take you to their contributing guidelines) -

Medium publications:

• Towards Data Science
• Better Programming
• ML Review

Other places:

• Dev.to
• CodeNewbie Community
• Hacker Noon
• FreeCodeCamp

As a new writer, you can piggyback off of their large audience to start creating a name for yourself.

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Writing online clearly has huge benefits on the careers of new programmers.

Yet, writing skills not taught in most CS courses and bootcamps. There are no good online courses or tutorials for codenewbies to learn how to write well.

I plan to change that.

I'm going to publish a series of articles in the Codenewbie Community to help learners who are in the same place as I was a few years ago. I'll share quick practical lessons help you get started with writing on the Internet.

This article is the 2nd one in the series.

So, follow me to get the notifications as I publish more.

Also, if you would like to get these lessons delivered to your email, one per week, sign up here.

Comments

[Federico Walovnik]

Great post! Do you think it's helpful to post the same article in two or three plataforms or it's not worth it? What does your experience has tought you?

[Nityesh Agarwal]

I think it is totally worth it if you use canonical links!

It is the highest priority thing (apart from writing articles itself) that you should do to grow your audience as a new writer.