4 ms·

I think it has something to do with this current culture of 'personal branding', wherein a lot of content online aimed at beginners says you should be blogging,

I think it has something to do with this current culture of 'personal branding', wherein a lot of content online aimed at beginners says you should be blogging, writing articles, basically telling people how to do the thing you learnt that day on dev.to, blogs, Twitter, Medium, etc. I don't think it is necessarily bad per se, but it all seems a bit useless? I think there is good value in writing a personal blog, a log of what you've learnt coming from the perspective of a learner, rather than a teacher.

runawaybottle 6y ago
I’ve thought about this. If I had to paint a metaphor, it’s akin to a tech selfie. Hi, I was here, using X technology (holds up blog post camera, points it at self standing next to the location/celebrity). Rinse and repeat, document your travels, it’s part of the modern melancholy, the extension of the self in a variety of superficial virtual forms. What’s the main problem with this in the tech community? We need a lot of credible content that is downright technical. It hurts our community if we let the modern condition permeate into this domain too much.
peterkos 6y ago
Yep. I've read a lot of medium articles that have zero actual substance and are just pharaphrasing a different article. Or, they are advocating for an objectively bad principle that the first SO result says is not optimal...
me_smith 6y ago
Do you have any suggestions for blogs that come from a perspective of a learner, rather than a teacher? I feel like DevLogs in the game dev corner could be an example of that.
- omniscient_oce 6y ago
  That's pretty much what I was thinking of haha. I like watching game devlogs too. None come immediately to mind but I've definitely come across some before on the web. Basically they kind of go "here is my problem, here's what I tried first, that didn't quite work so I tried that, but then I learnt about super_mega_amazing_tech and I wrote my code like this and it seems to work." I find those kind of things quite interesting to at least skim through if not read in full if it's well-written.

runawaybottle 6y ago

I’ve thought about this. If I had to paint a metaphor, it’s akin to a tech selfie. Hi, I was here, using X technology (holds up blog post camera, points it at self standing next to the location/celebrity). Rinse and repeat, document your travels, it’s part of the modern melancholy, the extension of the self in a variety of superficial virtual forms. What’s the main problem with this in the tech community? We need a lot of credible content that is downright technical. It hurts our community if we let the modern condition permeate into this domain too much.

peterkos 6y ago

Yep. I've read a lot of medium articles that have zero actual substance and are just pharaphrasing a different article. Or, they are advocating for an objectively bad principle that the first SO result says is not optimal...

me_smith 6y ago

Do you have any suggestions for blogs that come from a perspective of a learner, rather than a teacher? I feel like DevLogs in the game dev corner could be an example of that.

omniscient_oce 6y ago
That's pretty much what I was thinking of haha. I like watching game devlogs too. None come immediately to mind but I've definitely come across some before on the web. Basically they kind of go "here is my problem, here's what I tried first, that didn't quite work so I tried that, but then I learnt about super_mega_amazing_tech and I wrote my code like this and it seems to work." I find those kind of things quite interesting to at least skim through if not read in full if it's well-written.