[HN Gopher] Why don't I have a blog?
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Why don't I have a blog?
Author : BaraBatman
Score : 84 points
Date : 2022-01-12 15:51 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fede.dm)
(TXT) w3m dump (fede.dm)
| klodolph wrote:
| > 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.
| Cullinet wrote:
| my evisceral impression from this - blog post - is the author
| really needs a good boost for their morale and self valuation
| and confidence and the results may or may not include a amount
| of blogging, but will answer the call for a response which I am
| certain is written through every single pixel of this
| unnecessarily self deprecating rhetoric. the author clearly
| should, sometime, explore their writing skills and technology
| insights, but I don't think that is what has prompted this or
| what actually matters.
| pawptart wrote:
| I think you have plenty of interesting things to say.
|
| I'm in the same boat as you are, but I think if you put yourself
| out there you'd be surprised how much interest there is in the
| things you write.
|
| I had a blog post featured in a Ruby newsletter because I shared
| it on Reddit:
|
| https://blog.ty-porter.dev/
| poletopole wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. I know the answer for the following
| question may differ for the individual, but how long (or how
| many posts) did it take to find your "stride" so to speak?
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| I dont know!
| rambambram wrote:
| But... where's the RSS feed for your blog?
| dmix wrote:
| Oooh I didn't know there was an Aaron Schwartz book collecting
| his blog posts.
|
| Adding that one to the buy list.
|
| Actually I want to read all three (The Cathedral & the Bazaar by
| Eric S. Raymond, and UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian
| Kernigha).
| BenoitEssiambre wrote:
| I found Kernighan's book quite riveting. If you want the short
| version (this might spoil some of the book) this talk is quite
| something: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY6q5dv_B-o
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| I totally get it, but I blog[0], too.
|
| > I don't have anything interesting to say
|
| The main reason I blog is to improve my writing. Because I've
| been blogging for about 10 years, I have a record of how it's
| changed over time. I'd like to think that it's gotten better, but
| I have no feedback on that.
|
| Most of what I blog about is whatever game I've finished playing.
| I usually end up collaborating what others have said, but I'll
| add in a few notes or grievances that stand out to me that I
| haven't found anyone else talking about. When I read an old post,
| I'll come across those little things and I remember exactly what
| I was thinking about and why I wrote that.
|
| > I'm not a good programmer
|
| Me neither. I'm not some demigod like John Carmack. I'm an
| everyday programmer working the web mines. When I'm not blogging
| about games, I sometimes blog about some nifty feature I
| implemented[1] or novel way of solving a problem that I wanted to
| take note of.
|
| > I don't think it's good CV building
|
| I'm 99% certain that no one has read my blog and wanted to hire
| me because of it.
|
| I guess that's a long-winded way of saying that I write and blog
| for myself. I use it more like a personal journal instead of
| groundbreaking thoughts that I want everyone to read.
|
| [0] https://theandrewbailey.com/
|
| [1] https://theandrewbailey.com/article/220/Background-Text-
| and-...
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| this made me wonder if FB got huge because it simplified
| blogging, combining with something like RSS reading, in a single
| web app.
| giantrobot wrote:
| FB and Twitter don't require subject lines. I think this is one
| of the biggest factors in their attraction for _writing_
| (ignoring social aspects). Facebook and most other social media
| gives a simple writing prompt "what's up?". There's no need to
| plan out the post or give it a title. This is the same UX as
| text messages/messaging over e-mail. You can just write a
| message.
|
| The _implied_ requirement and /or UI requiring a subject line
| or title to a post or e-mail is a pain in the ass. People don't
| want to metacognate on what they're trying to say. They just
| want to type out a thought or ask a question.
|
| Blog software tends to enforce things like a subject/title
| because it often generates a URL from it. Facebook et al don't
| give a shit about such things. A post is just the latest and it
| gets assigned an ID number.
|
| Even the HN favorite RSS suffers from this because it really
| wants entries to have titles. They're not technically necessary
| but most reader software uses titles for UI elements. The
| implied requirement to title everything I think creates a
| higher barrier of entry than most people want to deal with.
|
| Even this post I'm typing, if I had to title it I'd probably
| not bother. I have something to say but having to think up a
| contextual title for it would be a waste of time and serve no
| benefit to the point I'm trying to make.
| going_ham wrote:
| I have a blog, to write things as a note for myself. It has
| helped me keep pushing and satisfying my curiosity. I write
| random things. I don't even have trackers or cookies enabled
| because I do not care if blog gets any view!
|
| So if you are afraid that people will find it boring, then write
| for yourself. Writing for oneself means you want to be able to
| write in a way such that you will go back to your note to remind
| you of things you learned.
|
| As you as said, pointing to the original is enough. If that is
| it, then just log those links and when you have time, go through
| them again! Once you will understand it is quite time consuming
| to review it, you may start writing!
|
| Good thing about writing in public is that you will want to set a
| bar for yourself. Something like commitment! Setting this bar
| will slowly improve your thought process and it brings other
| positive effects!
| greggman3 wrote:
| If you're only writing for yourself why make it public? Writing
| for myself I'd expect lots of internal thoughts I don't really
| want to share.
| going_ham wrote:
| It maintains a level of commitment. I don't normally write
| for myself, because I will always keep going back to the
| original source. But when I need something, that I feel like
| I need for a long time, I write it as if someone else is
| going to read it. This helps me escape all the lazy points
| that I have!
| decebalus1 wrote:
| I kind of agree with the author. There's also a lot of garbage
| content online and the problem with:
|
| > I don't have anything interesting to say
|
| is that people who truly don't have anything interesting to say
| often don't have the self-awareness to think like that.
|
| I used to have a blog. Actually, multiple blogs back in the mid
| aughts and I've learned the following:
|
| - from a game theory perspective, unless you're really good and
| have truly interesting things to say, you'll be better off not
| saying anything as you only have things to lose. You're only
| increasing your 'attack surface' for stalkers, future job
| prospects, etc.. It's very hard to keep things to yourself
| especially when you start having a following and then you start
| to overshare, push out some ideas some might find controversial
| or even ideas which become controversial as time goes by. You're
| better off just not saying shit.
|
| - if you have a dry technical blog which may help some poor souls
| only searching for a technical solution then go for it. But don't
| try to make a career out of it.
|
| - if you work for a BigCo, you need to self-censor big time.
| Anything you say can be associated with your workplace
| (regardless of your disclaimer) and get you in hot water.
|
| - even if you are anonymous, that's not a guarantee you won't get
| doxxed (see Slate Star Codex as an example).
|
| - if you think it will help your job prospects, even if you have
| a dry emotionless uncontroversial blog, think again. Nobody
| actually gives a shit about your blog except if you're on a very
| VERY narrow technology niche with few professionals. I don't know
| about others, but in most of my employment efforts, hiring
| gauntlet maintainers barely care about your actual experience and
| your blog is not even a data point.
| allenu wrote:
| Site is down, unfortunately. (At first I thought the broken link
| was a joke about not having a blog.)
| reureu wrote:
| A few years ago, I decided to stop blogging and instead focus
| that energy towards sharing my work and thoughts in other
| (typically more academic) venues. So, now, I focus more on
| posters, talks, papers, and the like in my professional spaces.
| It's a bit more involved than just throwing up a blog post, but
| it also helps me narrow in my interests so the work I do submit
| is more complete and interesting. It also has a wider audience
| than my blog ever had. And so, instead, my personal website looks
| more like an academic CV with links to my work presented at
| conferences and in journals, but with a decidedly industry spin
| and sometimes with some additional context/summary.
|
| YMMV, but just a thought for those that are also weighing
| decisions around blogging versus not.
| mrkentutbabi wrote:
| Isn't this a blog???
| PostThisTooFast wrote:
| omarhaneef wrote:
| It is not the case that "things" are interesting in and of
| themselves.
|
| An audience finds them interesting or not. Interest is a property
| of the listener or observer.
|
| You can just comment on the things _you_ find interesting, and
| presumably there are some people out there more or less like you
| that will find the same things interesting.
|
| It is worth noting that it takes some skill and effort to _make_
| things interesting for an audience, and that can be substantial.
| reidrac wrote:
| I like how it is put here: http://sawv.org/en.html
|
| It is an "Everything / Nothing" type of content.
|
| "The website's content means everything to the publisher, but
| it could mean nothing to the rest of the world."
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > They are your typical run-of-the-mill tutorials that replicate
| what's written on the official framework/language guide
|
| Yep, I'd like to permanently blacklist those idiotic baeldung,
| w3schools, tutorialspoint, and geeksforgeeks blogspam entries
| that SEO'ed themselves to the top of every google search I do for
| anything programming related.
| MH15 wrote:
| Baeldung I've found to be fantastic for Java tricks and Java
| library usage. Geeksforgeeks blogspam really helped me with
| algorithm problems while preparing for Leetcode-style
| interviews.
|
| I'd agree though that w3schools and tutorialspoint do as much
| harm as good.
| matt_s wrote:
| Whats funny is they have SEO'd their way to the top and once
| you are accustomed to it and scroll past them you are also
| scrolling past the top (or maybe all) the ads on the right hand
| side of search results.
| kenny11 wrote:
| There's an extension for Chrome and Firefox called "uBlacklist"
| that lets you do exactly this - you can maintain a list of
| domains that you never want to appear in the results of Google
| searches that you do.
| dimgl wrote:
| Omg this is amazing. Now I can blacklist those "hotexamples"
| websites
| leephillips wrote:
| You don't need an extension. You can just use the `-site`
| operator, and put your list in a bookmarklet, or use your
| browser's ability to define search shortcuts, if it has that.
| PenguinCoder wrote:
| Until Google starts ignoring that operator. Or the next
| blogspam SEO site pops up that's not on your -site list.
| 1over137 wrote:
| Is there such a thing for Firefox?
| WCSTombs wrote:
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublacklist/
| blendergeek wrote:
| Yes.
|
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublacklist/
| Karsteski wrote:
| I've found baeldung to be quite helpful actually. What do you
| not like about it? I understand what you mean though, I don't
| like the garbage programming-related articles from a lot of
| these sites you've listed. Even I as a newb developer have seen
| very poor advice or wrong info on w3schools, for example.
| codegeek wrote:
| w3schools has come a long way since the days of w3fools. What
| incorrect info. do you see on w3schools currently ? I find it
| to be a decent source these days.
| hrishi wrote:
| Simple solution: Write, but don't publish. Most of the blocks of
| feeling like you have nothing to add get better if you write
| more.
|
| Write for your colleagues, your partner, or just yourself, so you
| can clarify the streams of thought in your head and bang them
| against something.
|
| Even if you never publish, you'll benefit. Chances are, you'll
| find a few you want to publish along the way.
| voidhorse wrote:
| I have had an on-off relationship with writing for most of my
| life.
|
| The unintuitive truth about writing is that the writing happens
| before the sentences happen. Another way people make this point
| is by saying "writing is really just revising".
|
| I think it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that writing
| is the second step in a linear process, the first of which is
| "finding out what to say, or coming up with an idea or opinion".
| No. Simply write. If you can't think of anything, write "I have
| writer's block" then write the next random sentence that comes to
| your head. If necessary, just write down an amusing string of
| random words. Follow it up with another. If possible use a pen
| and paper, and most of all, try to make it a ritualistic
| practice. Whether it's once a day, once a week, or once a month
| the important thing is to just keep at it even if you have
| nothing to write, even if it's an exercise in producing garbage.
|
| For every great text out there there's an ocean of miscellany
| that went into the trash bin or manifested as (e.g. hacker news
| comments). You'll often come to something significant _during_
| the act of writing. The only thing you really need to master is
| getting into a state in which you don't censor yourself, you're
| comfortable with facing your deep buried demons, with your own
| ignorance, and your desires. Once you do that, the content will
| flow naturally. Then put your editor hat on and decide what to
| publish, what should remain private and what should be destroyed.
|
| Thinking is conducted through material processes, like putting a
| pen to paper or staring at birds. Ever since Descartes, there's
| an error people tend to make in divorcing thought/their mental
| life from their embodied existence--the two are not separable.
|
| When it comes to writing, remember Nike's motto.
|
| As an illustration of this point, none of the sentences in this
| post were floating around in my head or formulated until I
| started typing it out. If you had asked me to dictate a response
| on this topic it would have been entirely different.
| akprasad wrote:
| I completely empathize, and it's why I held off on it for so
| long.
|
| But recently I quit my job and decided to start in order to keep
| myself accountable. I've been pleasantly surprised by what I've
| gotten out of it so far and wrote down my thoughts here:
|
| https://arunkprasad.com/log/why-i-blog/
| fm2606 wrote:
| I do not understand the concept of self-accountability. If I
| say I'm going to do something for myself and not do it then
| what? If it is the self "shame" (for lack of a better word) for
| not performing/completing the goal/task I set for myself it
| will have to go to the end of the line of "self shame"; a very
| long line with many far more shameful things I've done/haven't
| done/started-and-not-completed through out my 51+ years.
|
| I do envy those who can hold themselves accountable and get
| things done.
| codeptualize wrote:
| I'm confused, is this not a blog post?
|
| It was a good read, you clearly have interesting things to say!
|
| I do share a lot of the same things you describe. I would like to
| blog, mainly for myself to practice writing and keep a record of
| things, but yeah, it's difficult. I also find it's a lot of work
| to do the research and all, time I maybe rather spend on building
| things.
| akprasad wrote:
| > I'm confused, is this not a blog post?
|
| It is, but AFAICT the entire blog is just this post.
|
| > I also find it's a lot of work to do the research and all,
| time I maybe rather spend on building things
|
| I found it useful to set a timer and write about small things,
| e.g. through this post [1] about blocking websites with
| /etc/hosts. It took about 20 minutes and I can share it with my
| interested friends. If I were a little faster, I could probably
| do it in 10.
|
| [1]: https://arunkprasad.com/log/how-to-break-the-habit-loop-
| for-...
| codeptualize wrote:
| > It is, but AFAICT the entire blog is just this post.
|
| A solid start! I'm looking forward to the next one.
|
| > I found it useful to set a timer and write about small
| things
|
| I should try that. I do enjoy the deep dive into a topic, but
| then I will never finish/publish something. Also quite
| perfectionistic which doesn't help, but your strategy sounds
| interesting, will give that a go.
|
| I like you short story format btw, it's nice, and interesting
| topics as well. Also looks like you are on a good streak,
| keep it going!
| tpoacher wrote:
| What a lovely looking webpage though.
|
| Btw, I've been thinking of the younger cousin of blogging a lot
| lately. Gemlogs on the geminispace, that is. Seems like a nice
| place to be, is all.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| I think, for a lot of people, "I don't have anything interesting
| to say" could more accurately be translated into, "I'm afraid of
| finding out something I believe is interesting actually isn't to
| anyone else."
|
| Rarely do people _genuinely_ think, and operate, as if nothing
| they could articulate will be relevant to anyone else. It 's
| literally the entire purpose of communication.
| mstrem wrote:
| I also don't have many interesting things to say. I also don't
| think I'm a particularly good programmer.
|
| But yet I have a blog. Mostly to improve my writing. And to give
| me an additional reason to explore a new topic once in a while.
| It's also a nice notebook.
|
| If I get a reader that's good. But building a high profile blog
| does not have to be the main goal.
| torstenvl wrote:
| I have a blog. Almost nobody reads it. That's okay!
|
| I treat it like a public notebook. When I find something
| interesting, I write a quick blog post. When I have to muddle
| through a technical issue that requires piecing together multiple
| other sources on the Internet, I write a blog post to summarize.
| I've written blog posts on getting Walmart security videos to
| play (Verint codec is a bitch), decoding Marine Corps brig phone
| call audio time stamps, setting up CAC readers and DoD Root
| Certificates on a Mac, _actually_ moving Time Machine history to
| a new Mac (which should happen automatically but never seems to
| work for me), etc.
|
| My blog isn't the only source of this information on the web. It
| usually isn't the first source. It's rarely the best source (for
| a while, it _was_ the best source for figuring out Walmart Verint
| security videos, but my solution is now outdated). But I do my
| best to put things together in a way that will be helpful to
| someone in the future who doesn 't know what he's doing -- even
| and especially if that future ignoramus is me.
| adenner wrote:
| There is a reason that mine has the subtitle of "it's like
| /dev/null but with more content" (https://denner.co/posts/)
|
| I also mostly use it as a public brain dump for things that I
| don't want to forget.
| neya wrote:
| Title: "Why I don't have a blog?". URL is `/blog/` (with a clever
| little comments section designed). Did I fall trap for sarcasm?
| dgellow wrote:
| No, they only have this single post.
| numbers wrote:
| I've started writing a bit of very niche technical docs that
| mostly help future me. Then I was looking at my analytics and I'm
| getting 5-8x more views on those posts (100-200 views a month),
| compared to my posts about my life, keyboards, other things that
| people will find mundane.
| ianmf wrote:
| > I don't have anything interesting to say
|
| I don't agree with this part.
|
| I use my blog to keep a journal on technical issues that were
| hard to fix, or was hard to find web sources about the subject.
| One of my top post is about using PFSense router with Verizon
| FIOS. It usually receives 2-3 unique visitors a day. It is simple
| and not interesting, but it helps a few people, so I keep it
| online.
|
| https://ianmf.com
| markshead wrote:
| I was once looking for a solution to some technical problem,
| clicked on a promising web result, and found myself at my blog.
| I had posted a solution several years earlier but had forgotten
| about it.
| smm11 wrote:
| I've done this, too.
|
| I've also run into comments I made on boards years, or even
| decades ago, and thought "there's a smart person," then
| realized I'd made the comment.
| OJFord wrote:
| Hm. When I do that I tend to think 'look at this idiot'!
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| Once I have a weird curl bug that the software was using and
| I went to GitHub to report the issue. Turn out I did report
| the issues 4 years ago and there is no one to look into this.
| For some reason the software was having curl errors due to
| Windows' version of curl. The only way I can fix this is to
| 'remove-item alias:curl" since the alias is set to Invoke-
| WebRequest in PowerShell when software want to use curl
| command. Yes there is curl.exe but the software didn't know
| that.
| ianmf wrote:
| > I was once looking for a solution to some technical
| problem, clicked on a promising web result, and found myself
| at my blog. I had posted a solution several years earlier but
| had forgotten about it.
|
| That is funny.
|
| Once I recognized that I have been researching the same
| topics I have researched before, it motivated me to change my
| blog from a "Hack the Box" showcase blog, to adding my
| technical journal on topics that were hard to find online and
| sharing my experience with certifications.
|
| I have been thinking of adding more personal entries, but I
| don't want to make the blog a social media.
| DrBoring wrote:
| I occasionally (yesterday in fact) experience this on
| StackOverflow. I'll be looking for an answer and come across
| one of my own answers or comments that I have no recollection
| of writing.
|
| It's always pleasant to say hello to yourself.
| godshatter wrote:
| Where is the go-to place to put blogs these days? It's been
| probably 15 years since I blogged, and I didn't do much of it
| then. On blogspot, I think.
| robertlacok wrote:
| Substack and Medium are the common platforms if you're
| interested in writing something.
|
| JAMstack if you'd prefer to tinker with the blogging system.
| canadianwriter wrote:
| I decided to re-frame this a bit. I have a website but don't have
| a blog. (here if curious: https://kolemcrae.com)
|
| It may SEEM blog like though. There are articles with my opinions
| and lots of great info. They just aren't in a chronological order
| or dated.
|
| I go in depth here: https://kolemcrae.com/notebook/notablog.html
|
| Instead of "why I don't have a blog" maybe one should reframe it
| as "why do I have nothing to share"?
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