Blogging Makes You A Better Developer

Photo by Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash

Throughout my career, I’ve found that I’d figure things out, and several months or years later, I’d bump into someone else that was trying to do something similar, and I’d think or say: “Yea, I can’t remember the specifics, but I definitely remember dealing with that.” That was the original motivation for starting my blog: to build a personal catalog of things I’ve learned that I could refer back to should the things become relevant again.

It started as a bit of a hobby but eventually became part of my weekly professional life. I’d research my assignments, and I’d track the journey. Once I finished, I’d organize my list of steps into an article and publish it. The more I wrote, the more views my blog would see, and it became exciting to watch traffic grow and track statistics.

I was reading an article about the Feynman Technique and realized that this is similar to how I approached writing.

• Start with a concept: a problem I’m trying to solve for an assignment
• Teach it to a toddler: figure it out/make it work
• Identify gaps: are there things I don’t understand about the solution or aspects that I am not able to articulate?
• Review & simplify: write an article that’s concise and easy to understand

I was having a lot of fun transforming my work into articles and watching daily traffic grow, but what I didn’t realize was that this activity was actually giving me tremendous professional growth in a number of ways.

Writing Skills

Writing is an extremely underrated skill for software developers. Between email, team chats, direct messages, and documentation, I’d venture to say I spend more time writing than I do coding. In the digital age, I’m often represented by the things I type much more than the things I say or do.

The more important part of writing is how it affects people around you, though. Good writing is essential to sharing and communicating your ideas. It allows you to explain concepts to your bosses, teammates, and clients/customers. Maybe it allows a colleague to understand your perspective and snap to your approach, or maybe it helps them explain back to you where you’re wrong. It might enable you to implement a cool…