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I would really like to begin posting about software development, but I'm brand new to all of this and don't know if my posts will be welcomed, shunned, or ignored completely.
I really like the idea of learning in the open, but it can feel so daunting and I'm a bit worried that the community will be annoyed or harsh with me for posting about things that I don't yet fully know. 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.
What do you think? When is the best time to begin posting about development? Do devs generally expect writers in these communities to know exactly what they're talking about or is it okay to just go for it and lean on the community for support?
Latest comments (35)
It's not a bad idea don't forget that we were all once beginners before we started to write content. Nobody is born to write you have to gain experience by doing the hard work. So just write stuff pick up a writing style and share your content.
"There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers" and "it's better to ask a stupid question and feel stupid for 5 seconds, than to not asking a stupid question and be stupid for the rest of your life" comes to mind ...
Dev is an open community, it's closely monitored for hate and bullying thx to its amazing team - I'd say go for it :)
Go for it, present it like a public diary. Be clear that you're a beginner, and ask for feedback. You can learn from people's comments. You can even edit your posts to improve them, based on the comments, until they are valuable resources for other people to learn from.
Don't take it too hard if some people are rude or disrespectful; that reflects badly on them, not on you. I think that this dev.to community is very friendly and supportive, so it shouldn't be a big problem here.
It is very valuable to keep a diary, and even more valuable to blog in public about a project or learning journey from the very beginning. You can make friends and even build a community. You will do better work because you are presenting it to the public. You will learn things more thoroughly as you explain them in your posts. Other people might want to help you or participate in some way. You blog series could become the basis of a book.
A great example of this is the dev log for the video game Gunpoint.
I'm doing something like this myself at the moment, blogging about game dev with my kids, and I've been very much enjoying it.
Please, I beg you, don't make a list of frameworks, CSS animation or resources sites… 😭
You can make something personal though: what you struggle with, why you want to learn something, why you want to build this product etc.
You can write about what you are learning. Or you can write about an issue you face as you are learning and what you did to get passed it. These kinds of things may be helpful to others like you who are getting started.
Or you can write about your journey like you did with this post. You'll notice that you already have 25 comments and a bunch of reactions, which is more than most posts, so people are engaging with your writing already.
Here on Dev.to your articles are definitely welcome. Just do not try to behave like an expert, it is totally fine to write as a beginner and share knowledge as well as collect some feedback!
There are so many great advice already, but I would like to add that from my experience many people in tech are really friendly and welcoming. Because you are learning in public, and through learning you will get some things wrong (that's part of how you learn, making mistake and all that) and people will be able to guide you on it and point you to the right direction.
I do believe that writing about a topic solidify knowledge, so if not a lot of people read your blog, it will still be beneficial for you anyway 😃.
If you don't start, you won't learn anything.
It’s never a bad thing to write about your journey in building your programming skills. Writing about it helped me to better understand what I was doing. If you want to write about something you’re doing, you need to understand what you’re talking about and that can give that extra push to fully understand what you wrote and why things work or don’t work.
Looking forward to your posts!
Phrase it as a TIL (Today I learned) or discuss learning a particular topic. Be ready to accept corrections and if you can, update your posts to include corrections/edits/learnings.
It's a great way to show your learning process and start building your personal brand. The negative is that potential employers may not care that a post is 5 years old, if they don't read it properly and see you making mistakes (even long ago), you might be judged on it (but do you want to work for those places anyway?).
You always have to start somehow.
Start now! Almost everyone I know from the field is very helpful. There are some haters ofcourse, but you will get them even if you have ten years of experience.
Take this as an advice - try to not care when they hate you and try to learn from positive feedback. If someone tell you you are wrong about something, you should be happy - you have someone that is pouring you knowledge. Don't panic, but ask even more questions!
One bit of advice I heard about writing about topics: there is always people with more knowledge than you, and also people with less knowledge. What you write may help bring knowledge to those that have less and in writing you will gain insights.
I would say start small and see how the community reacts to it and do it now.
What if people react badly to it? Well most tech people will just call out you are wrong, so ask them for their suggestions. This will broaden your perspective and knowledge.
What if people react nicely to it? Go post more 😊
Being ingenious in creating new solutions is something not many people can do. So if you have an approach and you feel it is not talked about, take the spotlight and share it with the world.
No one is born as an expert writer, but all expert writers did start somewhere.
Adding on to this as a dev who has wanted to dip into writing for awhile but struggles with some of the same doubts: I’ve learned a ton from just hanging out here regularly, seeing what sort of posts get traction, leaving comments, and seeing what sort of comments get responses.
Just doing that has made me more comfortable with the community, and given me a bunch of jump-off topics when I do decide to start writing.
And overall, don’t rush into it but don’t wait too long (like I did) either. Know what you want to get from it, write from the heart, aim to create value for your audience, and you’ll do great :)
Also another tip, always be welcoming to suggestions, and don't make it sound like
this is the only right wayorthis is the best way. It should be more likehow we handled itandhow we benefitted from it. As long as your post is not opinionated, people don't take offense of it.Some comments may only be visible to logged-in visitors. Sign in to view all comments.