| > I don't have anything interesting to say. It's hard to judge what other people would find interesting about what you have to say. Things you think are obvious are obvious and boring may be illuminating to others, and vice versa. Anyway, I don't think the author has really given blogging a fair shake. > On his blog, Aaron Swartz explains how writing things down will help him reflect better on his thoughts. The author doesn't really investigate this line of thought. The thing about writing a blog post is that good writing requires clear thinking, and clear thinking is useful! It would be nice if we could tap into that benefit in personal journals without publishing a blog, but as far as I can tell, most people write differently when they write only for themselves. There's a number of benefits of writing for an audience, even if that audience turns out not to exist. When I blog, I feel forced to justify my reasoning and investigate alternatives. I feel the need to explain something a little deeper than whatever literal series of events that I'm talking about. I think programmers who don't like writing and don't like sharing should at least give blogging a shot... there's a chance that it will help you think better, and there are also plenty of opportunities that will open for you if you are a stronger writer. |
Exactly this. The act of writing it down (whatever "it" is - code, prose, marketing materials, technical documents, mind maps, whatever) is inseparable from the process by which it was invented. If you value the end product, you have to value the process as a forcing function for clear thinking.
But that doesn't mean you have to publish a blog! There are other ways to transfer knowledge. Personally, most of my writing efforts have gone from blogging to markdown files in github repos.