7 Good Reasons To Start Blogging As a Developer

You probably think the sole job of a web developer is to create websites and web applications. If so, you are unfortunately not the only one.

Anytime I tell any of my friends I am a web developer their first response is: “Oh so you make websites?”

It’s not just about designing and coding websites, or setting up databases and all of those technical stuffs. Though that is the main function of a web developer.

I believe that there are many facets to web development, and one of them is technical writing and blogging.

Technical writing to me serves as the bridge between the technical world and the artistic world. Writing allows you explain complex technical terms in a digestible form to the audience. It allows you apply your artistic ingenuity in the process of sharing your knowledge. When you apply art to your process of sharing knowledge, it is more likely to be understood better.

Blogging is an activity I would recommend every developer considers at some point, and here are some good reasons I think so:

It Makes You a Better Teacher

Blogging is all about putting thoughts into words and sentences. Technical Blogging is all about putting technical concepts into sentences.

The later is considerable harder for because you are translating a different language, one which is not easily understood by the human mind like say, English Language.
Thus, it takes considerably more effort and practise to seamlessly convey your information in a digestible way to your audience.

This action challenges you into finding a better and more artful way of teaching them to their comprehension.

For example, constant blogging has made me better at using analogies to teach and my audience always praise me for that. In other words, it made me a better teacher.

You Actually Get Better At Writing

Just because you’re writing something technical doesn’t mean you aren’t using English.
The best way to learn or master anything is with constant practise.

When you write articles consistently, you are also (inadvertently) training yourself to get better in generic writing. I am a testament of this.

When I started out, my writing was horrendous. Maybe it’s still bad as of now, but I have surely gotten better at it!

If you write more you get better, whether you realize it or not.

You Boost your Career

Let’s be honest, there is more to web development than just hacking code. In fact, a lot of “developers” actually make the bulk of their income from technical writing, and that is a path I am quite interested in taking.

But enough of me.

You can actually boost your career by writing articles. There is a job known as DevRel (developer relations). As the name implies, the developer relates with the users of his or her company’s product.

And guess what? He relates with words, not code.

You Learn How to Type Faster

This may not be an obvious reason, but writing articles regularly increases your typing speed by at least 10 percent.

It increased mine by over 100 percent!

It also helps you get familiar with the positions of your keyboard. No more typing like a snail!

You don’t need me to remind you of the wonders this could do to your productivity as a developer.

Another reason you should definitely consider writing more.

Let’s take a slight break from the non-technical part. If you want to learn the technical part of web development from ground up, I highly recommend HTML To React By SleeplessYogi.

You Get To Try New Words

Words make you sound smarter. There are over 170,000 words in your typical English Dictionary.

If you are like me, who is always curious in discovering and applying new words, then writing is a perfect way to do just that.

You Connect Deeper With Your Audience

Let’s be honest, no one would enjoy reading a blocks of code just like that. That’s drab!

Humans are naturally artistic. We appreciate a good work of art.

A brilliant way of connecting deeper with your audience is by using the right words in the right context. The only way you can master this skill is by writing consistently.

With articles, you can relate far more information to your audience in a way that they can deeply understand and connect with you

You Grow A Loyal Audience From Scratch

After you have written and produced content constantly for a long period of time, people start to note you for your way of writing.

Your content is shared, words go around are more people start to find you and appreciate your work.

And with time, you amass a legion of audience who could go on to support your work.
All these is possible only you engage more in writing as a software developer.

As you can see, the benefits of starting a blog as a software developer are huge.

Would you want to miss out on all these opportunities?

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Thank you for your time and see you soon!