It is 2021 and I started the year thinking:
I want to start blogging, put myself out there, share knowledge and create an online presence.
This is the first stone. This is my story and these are the steps that led me here today.
Do not reinvent the wheel
I am a Software Engineer. Sometimes, when I code I want to implement something I had already implemented somewhere else in the past. It is in those times, when I wish I had a tutorial or some code snippets I wish I had saved, specially when the thing I did in the past was tedious or hard to get right.
By documenting the problems I solve in the open for everybody to read, not only I will be hopefully helping somebody else solve the same problems, but I will also have to make sure I describe it in a better way. Sometimes I write down something, thinking it does not need to be very detailed because I remember all the context. Some time later I come back and realize I have forgotten all the context and I do not know what I was talking about. I think I am not the only one. So, instead of just trying to figure out what I did in the past, or just do it all over again from scratch, why not documenting it properly in the first place? Do not reinvent the wheel.
Knowledge sharing
Knowledge sharing has become a very important thing in my life. As a software engineer, this is part of my job on a daily basis. Either I have no experience, little experience or a lot of experience, the truth is that me as well as everybody else are always learning. You and I may be very experienced in one area, that means we can teach others what we know. On the other hand, we may not have that much experience on another area. Software development is huge after all. That means there is always knowledge to be shared, in every direction.
Show your work!
This is the title of a book by Austin Kleon. In the book, the author talks about putting yourself out there, to work in the open. This helps you lose the fear of criticism and realize that you do not need to be a genius. It made me change my mentality, it does not need to be perfect to be useful. It does not need to be complete either, even a small bit can already be useful.
Blogging challenge
Around new year’s, I came across Monica Lent’s blogging 7-day challenge.
Hey y'all! If you didn't catch it last week, I'm starting a free newsletter to teach devs about blogging, SEO, and writing content.
— Monica Lent (@monicalent) 15 May, 2020
The 7-day kick-off challenge starts THIS WEEKEND, so join in if you're looking for a kick in the keister 😁 Happy Friday! https://t.co/PNlwM428R4
I already knew I wanted to write a blog and I wanted it to be perfect (that was my old mindset). In the 7-day challenge I read about a lot of very useful tips and tricks, from writing to setting everything up. As somebody who enjoys programming, creating my blog sounded like a lot of fun! However, what I really wanted was to write content on the blog. That is when it stroke me, I do not need to program the whole thing by myself.
Thanks to Monica Lent I also realized there are tons of tools, for free, that I can use to get started. I learned what Jamstack is and that you do not need a backend to build your own blog. I learned that you can use things like Jekyll, Hugo or Gatsby and write your blog posts in Markdown 😍. Finally, I learned there is something called Netlify that allows me to have my blog’s code and content in a GIT repository and deploy the site automatically by just pushing the changes online. There was really nothing stopping me from successfully creating my blog!
What I will be writing about
I know my thing is software development and you can expect me to write about it most likely. However, like everybody else I also have other interests, which means I may (or may not) write about other things too. I hope someone finds something useful here.
Thanks for reading!
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