In addition to dangrossman's comments, I have friends and family that are geographically distant. Blogs, and social networking in general (Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz), help maintain a sense of emotional closeness.
1) I'm interested in the field of Computer Science (CS) and I like to write articles about various things I encounter and learn in this field. I'm also interested in other fields, but since I studied CS and work in this field, it's the one in which I'm "up to the mark". Well, that doesn't mean that I won't be writing articles about topics from other fields.
2) I love it when interesting discussions start around the subject an article of mine is addressing. For me, this point is one of the most rewarding things I get from blogging, since you can learn quite a lot of new things thanks to it.
3) I love to write tutorials, with the hope that somebody can benefit from them (hopefully in a good way :) I'm always happy when I read a comment from a user, whom a tutorial has helped in some way.
4) Since I read quite a lot of articles online, I use my blog also to post linkings to such interesting articles. I think the one or the other linking is appreciated by the few readers I have :)
5) It helps me to improve my language skills, since I decided to write the articles in English rather than in German. IMHO it's a good exercise.
1) Blogging is like going to the gym except for writing: if I stopped, I'd end up an overworked, pudgy Japanese salaryman with no writing ability in English.
2) Blogging makes people say nice things about my ideas and that has always given me the warm fuzzies.
3) My decision to start a business 3.5 years ago was heavily influenced by accounts of success I had read from other people, and I wanted to leave similar encouragement.
4) My blog (or rather, a half-dozen handpicked articles from it) makes a far better case for hiring me than my resume or publicly available source code does.
I came here to say these exact things. Well done, and good luck!
Actually, I'd add a fifth item that is related to item 1:
5. Writing about things helps me clarify my ideas and stop hand-waving over important details. So writing makes me a better writer, and it also makes me a better thinker.
Related to this: Writing about something I'm not 100% familiar with forces me to learn more about it both breadth- and depth-wise. When learning a new topic, it is extremely helpful to write up a tutorial describing "how to" do this new thing. If forces you to understand before codifying an attempt to help others understand.
In my opinion, having a blog is as much about learning as it is about sharing information with other people. There's just something about putting your thoughts into words that helps you crystalize certain ideas that float around in your head.
For instance, if you read most of Paul Graham's essays, you'll notice that they probably serve more to teach him than to actually share things.
Plus, having people read your thoughts serves as a good way to gauge whether you're on the right track or not. If there's something wrong with your idea, believe me someone will let you know. This is why I sometimes submit articles to HN: to get an idea if what I'm writing is of any interest to hackers.
I've been running it since 2002, and every job I've had since then has come about as a result of connections made through blog related activity. It's an incredibly powerful professional tool.
1) To practice writing;
2) To develop stray ideas that keep floating around in my head inconclusively;
3) To reminisce about 8 bit hardware and software.
yes, but it's not the kind of thing anyone would read regularly (almost all traffic is from search). it's a simple way (i can "post" by sending myself an email) for me to keep a note of interesting links and to publish technical fixes so that they appear in google searches for others.
1) To practice my writing skill - I may be awesome at programming, but my prose comes out too slow. I hope practice will allow me to write faster, yet still coherently.
2) There are many people on the internet that are just plain wrong, and I must correct them! :)
3) To leave an impression when I am gone, albeit small.
Sometimes I discover something I want to share with everyone else. Or I have an opinion I want to air to the world. In the end, it doesn't really matter that the world largely doesn't care because I don't promote my blog a lot, because I post very rarely or because my posts aren't brilliant like Steve Yegge's. I'm happy whenever there's someone who reads it, but I don't have enough time to put into making it better than it is right now.
Yes, it provides an easy way of transferring ideas and scripts I'm using at home to work without having to pass code through an overly aggressive email filter.
Besides, as others have said people can see what quality level of code I can produce from it.
In high school ('01-05) I had a site called "rants". It was a blog read by maybe 10 people total, including my parents. I happened to email O'Reilly to ask about something and they noticed the blog in my sig. They invited me to start posting reviews in exchange for free copies. I only got through two books but it was fun! Anyway, I found my old review of Learning Perl on the wayback machine:
No, I feel a lot of people my age are not experienced enough to be able to write anything worthwhile. The result is "So I was reading this on [well-known blog] and here is my commentary", or "This is how you do X in Y", which should really be in the wiki for Y.
Not trying to be combative, but so what if they are?
My last (and widely viral) blog post was about me reacting to a blog post, but that didn't change the fact that many people found it interesting enough to forward on to their friends, post to Reddit, etc. I've learned so much from the reactions to my 3 short blog posts that I don't think I'll ever be "too busy" or "too inexperienced" to blog again in my life.
You must be the exception and congratulations on that. But surely we could all do without another junior-level-liberal-know-it-all-cause-I-keep-up-with-reddit/hn who will chime in on Google Buzz, Apple IPad, that dude who neglected his Markdown project, why Flash is dead, why Flash is not dead, why I switched to Django, why some language is the new hotness* , and beginner JQuery tips for good measure.
Actually, the fact that people take the time to write long, detailed posts about various programming topics matters a lot. At least it does to me, and I think I can pretty safely make the assumption that it matters to a few other newbie programmers too.
Unlike technical documentation, which answers the "what?" and "how?" questions, I find that blog writers (the good ones) often answer the "why?" question implicit in the information I'm trying to find, in addition to the other two. This is invaluable when I'm trying to understand what's going on, or when I don't know what questions I should be asking.
When I'm picking up some new technical subject, the best way to learn about it is to google it. Most of the time, what I end up at is some blog post that tells me more or less exactly what I want to know. So it seemed only fair that I should try to give a little something back.
Some of my blog articles have been pretty popular. A couple of times they have been used as answers at StackOverflow. I always get a little buzz when I am the top google hit for some technical term.
Google rewarded me for frequent blogging by increasing my PageRank to 3. Now I don't blog as much as I used to, and they demoted me to 2. sadface
1) To make some written record of my opinions and thoughts for my progeny to read years after I die
2) To organize my thoughts. I find that by writing about things that somewhat confuse me, I am able to clarify what I believe and why
3) To preserve my skill at long-format(!) writing. Blog writing is different than tweeting, or emailing. "Long format" seems a stretch, but in today's technology arena a blog is like a novel used to be. Being able to cogently organize a theme, a tone, a thesis, and supporting details makes me a better communicator overall.
There are some bonus reasons: it also helps me remember easily forgotten details of issues. It is a good way to have some lightweight web design work to tweak every now and then.
Blogging is a good habit that is good for you. I hate to see that Facebook and Twitter take a lot of my time away from it.
Actually, I've been blog free until just recently. I'm a terribly sentimental type of guy, but I had never realized the potential of a blog to be almost like the "new" photo album.
Since I started with that idea, I've also realized that online identity is becoming very, very important. So much so that people land jobs because of it. It's a great way to break the ice, on the readers terms.
So while I feel like I'm late to the game, I have now immersed myself into social networks. I started blogging, flickring, facebooking, tweeting, githubbing(?), and now, buzzing.
I had two things to say(1,2), back in 2007 or so, so I started a blog. Now I've said them, as well as a few other things, but I don't really blog all that much these days.
Who knows, maybe I'll get inspired again one of these days...
This reason is kind of lazy, but: Blogs help in making an awesome site devoted only to a particular subject and news about that subject easily. But the only criteria is: don't let it look like a normal blog.
For a personal blog:
1) Love writing about ideas and my thoughts even though a selected few would only read them. Makes me feel good and keeps my brain working.
2) After school, we didn't have a proper language subject, just computer science, maths ..., writing maintains the communication strength. Language is important too!
79 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] thread1) It attracts interesting people to contact me and offer work/projects/partnerships.
2) I like having a written history of the evolution of my business.
3) There are people interested in checking in on what I'm up to every once in a while that don't use social networks.
1) I'm interested in the field of Computer Science (CS) and I like to write articles about various things I encounter and learn in this field. I'm also interested in other fields, but since I studied CS and work in this field, it's the one in which I'm "up to the mark". Well, that doesn't mean that I won't be writing articles about topics from other fields.
2) I love it when interesting discussions start around the subject an article of mine is addressing. For me, this point is one of the most rewarding things I get from blogging, since you can learn quite a lot of new things thanks to it.
3) I love to write tutorials, with the hope that somebody can benefit from them (hopefully in a good way :) I'm always happy when I read a comment from a user, whom a tutorial has helped in some way.
4) Since I read quite a lot of articles online, I use my blog also to post linkings to such interesting articles. I think the one or the other linking is appreciated by the few readers I have :)
5) It helps me to improve my language skills, since I decided to write the articles in English rather than in German. IMHO it's a good exercise.
1) Blogging is like going to the gym except for writing: if I stopped, I'd end up an overworked, pudgy Japanese salaryman with no writing ability in English.
2) Blogging makes people say nice things about my ideas and that has always given me the warm fuzzies.
3) My decision to start a business 3.5 years ago was heavily influenced by accounts of success I had read from other people, and I wanted to leave similar encouragement.
4) My blog (or rather, a half-dozen handpicked articles from it) makes a far better case for hiring me than my resume or publicly available source code does.
Actually, I'd add a fifth item that is related to item 1:
5. Writing about things helps me clarify my ideas and stop hand-waving over important details. So writing makes me a better writer, and it also makes me a better thinker.
In my opinion, having a blog is as much about learning as it is about sharing information with other people. There's just something about putting your thoughts into words that helps you crystalize certain ideas that float around in your head.
For instance, if you read most of Paul Graham's essays, you'll notice that they probably serve more to teach him than to actually share things.
Plus, having people read your thoughts serves as a good way to gauge whether you're on the right track or not. If there's something wrong with your idea, believe me someone will let you know. This is why I sometimes submit articles to HN: to get an idea if what I'm writing is of any interest to hackers.
I've been running it since 2002, and every job I've had since then has come about as a result of connections made through blog related activity. It's an incredibly powerful professional tool.
1) To practice writing; 2) To develop stray ideas that keep floating around in my head inconclusively; 3) To reminisce about 8 bit hardware and software.
1) To practice my writing skill - I may be awesome at programming, but my prose comes out too slow. I hope practice will allow me to write faster, yet still coherently.
2) There are many people on the internet that are just plain wrong, and I must correct them! :)
3) To leave an impression when I am gone, albeit small.
Besides, as others have said people can see what quality level of code I can produce from it.
2. To promote my book. I hope readers of my blog will be tempted to buy The Geek Atlas.
3. To quote Alain de Botton: "Authors write things down so as to have to think of them less."
4. It helps me practice writing.
>3. To quote Alain de Botton: "Authors write things down so as to have to think of them less."
This is what I do when I have a lot on my mind. It is a nice exercise to flush everything out and get closure.
Also, can I get a review copy of your book? Ill write a review on O'Reilly .. No? ok didnt think so ...
http://web.archive.org/web/20030421033045/http://rant.c99.or...
1) To write. Whether or not I am good at it or anyone reads it, I enjoy the act of writing.
2) To record a bit of who I am, not for the internet, but for my kids, just in case I get hit by a bus before they grow up.
My last (and widely viral) blog post was about me reacting to a blog post, but that didn't change the fact that many people found it interesting enough to forward on to their friends, post to Reddit, etc. I've learned so much from the reactions to my 3 short blog posts that I don't think I'll ever be "too busy" or "too inexperienced" to blog again in my life.
* for this week
1) Noise. I have opinions about things but they are just adding more noise. The only place I write is here... and I know I shouldn't...
2) Blogging is writing about doing instead of doing (I think Jeff Atwood said that).
3) Bloggers will do anything for self-promotion and it makes me sick.
4) What a blogger writes just doesn't matter.
Actually, the fact that people take the time to write long, detailed posts about various programming topics matters a lot. At least it does to me, and I think I can pretty safely make the assumption that it matters to a few other newbie programmers too.
Unlike technical documentation, which answers the "what?" and "how?" questions, I find that blog writers (the good ones) often answer the "why?" question implicit in the information I'm trying to find, in addition to the other two. This is invaluable when I'm trying to understand what's going on, or when I don't know what questions I should be asking.
If that was true, you wouldn't have quoted Jeff Atwood.
Some of my blog articles have been pretty popular. A couple of times they have been used as answers at StackOverflow. I always get a little buzz when I am the top google hit for some technical term.
Google rewarded me for frequent blogging by increasing my PageRank to 3. Now I don't blog as much as I used to, and they demoted me to 2. sadface
shameless plug: http://www.platinumball.net/blog/
I blog for three reasons:
1) To make some written record of my opinions and thoughts for my progeny to read years after I die
2) To organize my thoughts. I find that by writing about things that somewhat confuse me, I am able to clarify what I believe and why
3) To preserve my skill at long-format(!) writing. Blog writing is different than tweeting, or emailing. "Long format" seems a stretch, but in today's technology arena a blog is like a novel used to be. Being able to cogently organize a theme, a tone, a thesis, and supporting details makes me a better communicator overall.
There are some bonus reasons: it also helps me remember easily forgotten details of issues. It is a good way to have some lightweight web design work to tweak every now and then.
Blogging is a good habit that is good for you. I hate to see that Facebook and Twitter take a lot of my time away from it.
Since I started with that idea, I've also realized that online identity is becoming very, very important. So much so that people land jobs because of it. It's a great way to break the ice, on the readers terms.
So while I feel like I'm late to the game, I have now immersed myself into social networks. I started blogging, flickring, facebooking, tweeting, githubbing(?), and now, buzzing.
Who knows, maybe I'll get inspired again one of these days...
(1) http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/02/two-weeks-vaca...
(2) http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2008/05/laid-off-one-t...
For a personal blog: 1) Love writing about ideas and my thoughts even though a selected few would only read them. Makes me feel good and keeps my brain working.
2) After school, we didn't have a proper language subject, just computer science, maths ..., writing maintains the communication strength. Language is important too!