Member-only story
Throughout the years I have been programming, there is one thing that I continue to kick myself over and that is not starting a blog earlier. A blog is a great tool to have in your back pocket for a multitude of reasons which I will go ahead and explain here!
Helps the Community
I think one of the healthiest things when it comes to any craft or hobby is to have a lively community. Programming benefits from this especially since there are so many domains within this field. There is so much to learn and new technologies coming out constantly. It’s also very common to see a growth mindset within this community, continuous learning, swapping jobs, building side projects, etc.
So having a blog means that you can share your experiences with others in the world, to share the knowledge of what you would want others to know. Also sharing your expertise when it comes to a specific area within this craft since again, it’s such a large field. Having this mindset helps build the community by helping others solve their problems or providing insight to them as they walk their journey.
Personal Development
Many self-help gurus and productivity experts love to talk about journaling. I like to view blogging along that vein. It helps the individual grow both technically and mentally.
Mentally speaking, it helps get your thoughts out onto a page and let others hear about your experiences and thoughts. It helps build a bit of mental clarity since it helps you develop a way to methodically deliver information and ideas to others around the world. It also allows you to dump all of this information out so you can free some space in your brain.
If the blog is a technical one, then teaching others is always the best way to truly test your knowledge of a subject. You need to understand the topic well in order to deliver it to others such that they understand it. So, writing a tutorial requires you to work through the pieces, make sure your sample works, understand why it works, and then articulate that in a way that is easily digestible. This might sound easy, but it can be a very difficult task to do.
