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> I kept an eye on his blog and he was publishing a coding tutorial every week Why would such an inexperienced, ignorant developer need a blog? D. Richard Hipp

by irix20 10y ago

> I kept an eye on his blog and he was publishing a coding tutorial every week Why would such an inexperienced, ignorant developer need a blog? D. Richard Hipp doesn't have one. Neither does Fabrice Bellard. But for some reason, medium.com is teeming with blog posts from people I've never heard of (some of which end up on HN's front page), usually dogmatically dispensing bad advice about how to program or denigrating the profession and those who practice it by accusing them of racism, sexism, elitism, or some other -ism. Have bootcamps made this style of blogging a requirement? EDIT: Downvote all you like. Novice programmers shouldn't have blogs. A blog is a public platform, a soapbox, for sharing your thoughts. As a novice, your thoughts likely aren't worth sharing and might even be harmful. Spend more time on programming and less time on self-promotion and you too may one day be as good as Bellard or Hipp.

yunolisten 10y ago
Posting and sharing your experiences can help you reflect on where you went wrong, and what you did right. This is a perfectly valid thing to do. If your beef is people posting content about which they are ill informed, that's >90% of the internet.
- irix20 10y ago
  > Posting and sharing your experiences can help you reflect on where you went wrong, and what you did right. You can reflect on something without broadcasting it to the entire world, and if you're a novice, how do you really know what you did right? How do you know your advice isn't leading other novices astray? > This is a perfectly valid thing to do. It's "valid" as in legal, but hardly commendable. This style of blogging is generally unhelpful, unproductive, and it reeks of self-promotion.
  - yunolisten 10y ago
    > how do you really know what you did right? How do you know your advice isn't leading other novices astray? You seem to believe everyone fits into a pattern you have preconceived. I was speaking generically, some people find it valid and valuable to do so, which does not mean that you (specifically) will find any value in it. I don't read about sports, should nobody be able to write their opinion about a sporting event? How do we know this may not lead novice sports persons astray? >It's "valid" as in legal, but hardly commendable. While arguable not 'commendable' is it 100% of the time reprehensible?
    - irix20 10y ago
      > should nobody be able to write their opinion about a sporting event A better analogy would be someone starting a medical blog after having read a book or two and crafting a profile for it that gives the reader the impression that they're some kind of medical professional. This is in effect what these medium bloggers do when they claim to be a "fullstack" developer specializing in RoR, JS, React, Node.js, etc. despite having only graduated from a bootcamp last week. > While arguable not 'commendable' is it 100% of the time reprehensible? I never said it was reprehensible, but it's unfortunate that the people whose voices are heard the most are generally the least worth hearing, that many of the best programmers never blog at all while these incompetents drone on and on, and that many of the best programmer blogs, such as Pershing on Programming, aren't read.
      - yunolisten 10y ago
        > Novice programmers shouldn't have blogs. A blog is a public platform, a soapbox, for sharing your thoughts. Either you believe that people have the right to air their opinion/experience or you don't. How accurate it may be is somewhat irrelevant. If they do have a blog, people can contact them or otherwise reply in public, calling them out should the be spreading BS. Who decides when people have enough of whatever quality you deem satisfactory to be allowed to share their thoughts and experiences with the world? People being full of BS is not a problem which is unique to the internet, it's just easier for them to post, and easier for you to ignore than someone standing yelling something at you.
  - BWStearns 10y ago
    >> if you're a novice, how do you really know what you did right? Enable comments or post to Reddit. If you're wrong there are content editors roaming the web who are alarmingly well informed and fast, and free of charge.
lj3 10y ago
Putting right or wrong aside, blogging has one crucial benefit: it's practice for explaining your code to other people. That's a critical skill you'll need throughout your career, no matter your level of talent.
twic 10y ago
> Novice programmers shouldn't have blogs. I kind of agree with this. It hinges on what you mean by "blog". Novice programmers should absolutely have journals, to synthesize and record what they're learning, and share those journals with other people to get feedback. I kept a journal on paper back when i was learning, and today, it would be natural to do this online. However, novice programmers should absolutely not be giving other people advice on programming, or clogging up search results with basic and probably incomplete or incorrect material. The trouble is that we don't have distinct mechanisms for those two kinds of public writing. We just have blogs. It's difficult for either human beings or search engines to reliably separate the wheat from the chaff.
MaulingMonkey 10y ago
> As a novice, your thoughts likely aren't worth sharing and might even be harmful. At the very least they can share sources of information they found particularly useful or clear. They can do so better than you and I, to whom too much is now "obvious" - only by virtue of having internalized it a decade or two ago. Even novices can have cool projects to share on occasion. Not to say there isn't plenty of junk that wasn't worth blogging, but I wouldn't go as far as "Novice programmers shouldn't have blogs." Especially when the alternative to even the junk is for the same (mis)information to fester by word of mouth and the like - we're social creatures after all - where it cannot be corrected.

by irix20 10y ago

yunolisten 10y ago

Posting and sharing your experiences can help you reflect on where you went wrong, and what you did right. This is a perfectly valid thing to do. If your beef is people posting content about which they are ill informed, that's >90% of the internet.

irix20 10y ago
> Posting and sharing your experiences can help you reflect on where you went wrong, and what you did right. You can reflect on something without broadcasting it to the entire world, and if you're a novice, how do you really know what you did right? How do you know your advice isn't leading other novices astray? > This is a perfectly valid thing to do. It's "valid" as in legal, but hardly commendable. This style of blogging is generally unhelpful, unproductive, and it reeks of self-promotion.
- yunolisten 10y ago
  > how do you really know what you did right? How do you know your advice isn't leading other novices astray? You seem to believe everyone fits into a pattern you have preconceived. I was speaking generically, some people find it valid and valuable to do so, which does not mean that you (specifically) will find any value in it. I don't read about sports, should nobody be able to write their opinion about a sporting event? How do we know this may not lead novice sports persons astray? >It's "valid" as in legal, but hardly commendable. While arguable not 'commendable' is it 100% of the time reprehensible?
  - irix20 10y ago
    > should nobody be able to write their opinion about a sporting event A better analogy would be someone starting a medical blog after having read a book or two and crafting a profile for it that gives the reader the impression that they're some kind of medical professional. This is in effect what these medium bloggers do when they claim to be a "fullstack" developer specializing in RoR, JS, React, Node.js, etc. despite having only graduated from a bootcamp last week. > While arguable not 'commendable' is it 100% of the time reprehensible? I never said it was reprehensible, but it's unfortunate that the people whose voices are heard the most are generally the least worth hearing, that many of the best programmers never blog at all while these incompetents drone on and on, and that many of the best programmer blogs, such as Pershing on Programming, aren't read.
    - yunolisten 10y ago
      > Novice programmers shouldn't have blogs. A blog is a public platform, a soapbox, for sharing your thoughts. Either you believe that people have the right to air their opinion/experience or you don't. How accurate it may be is somewhat irrelevant. If they do have a blog, people can contact them or otherwise reply in public, calling them out should the be spreading BS. Who decides when people have enough of whatever quality you deem satisfactory to be allowed to share their thoughts and experiences with the world? People being full of BS is not a problem which is unique to the internet, it's just easier for them to post, and easier for you to ignore than someone standing yelling something at you.
- BWStearns 10y ago
  >> if you're a novice, how do you really know what you did right? Enable comments or post to Reddit. If you're wrong there are content editors roaming the web who are alarmingly well informed and fast, and free of charge.

lj3 10y ago

Putting right or wrong aside, blogging has one crucial benefit: it's practice for explaining your code to other people. That's a critical skill you'll need throughout your career, no matter your level of talent.

twic 10y ago

> Novice programmers shouldn't have blogs. I kind of agree with this. It hinges on what you mean by "blog". Novice programmers should absolutely have journals, to synthesize and record what they're learning, and share those journals with other people to get feedback. I kept a journal on paper back when i was learning, and today, it would be natural to do this online. However, novice programmers should absolutely not be giving other people advice on programming, or clogging up search results with basic and probably incomplete or incorrect material. The trouble is that we don't have distinct mechanisms for those two kinds of public writing. We just have blogs. It's difficult for either human beings or search engines to reliably separate the wheat from the chaff.

MaulingMonkey 10y ago

> As a novice, your thoughts likely aren't worth sharing and might even be harmful. At the very least they can share sources of information they found particularly useful or clear. They can do so better than you and I, to whom too much is now "obvious" - only by virtue of having internalized it a decade or two ago. Even novices can have cool projects to share on occasion. Not to say there isn't plenty of junk that wasn't worth blogging, but I wouldn't go as far as "Novice programmers shouldn't have blogs." Especially when the alternative to even the junk is for the same (mis)information to fester by word of mouth and the like - we're social creatures after all - where it cannot be corrected.