Ask HN: Starting blogging when you're not an expert?

Are you just looking for an excuse not to do it? People write about things they don't know much about all the time. Just start. People will read it, or they won't. People will find value in it, or they won't. No matter what, you'll get the practice that's required to improve.

If you planning do blogging for yourself (studying purposes) it doesn't matter would it be relevant for others.

It is a good way to teach/repeat/remember something. (for example referensed here https://hackernoon.com/the-best-way-to-learn-development-ski...)

Maybe you find GitHub's gist usefull https://gist.github.com/

P.S. Sorry for poor english

"...I just think it could help me learn more, faster and to improve my communications skills."

That's reason enough to write about what you're learning. Patio11 talks about this a lot - it's important that people learning new things write about what they're learning _as they learn it_ because they'll encounter things that only someone new to that domain will encounter in that particular way.

There's a lot of value in writing about the issue you had setting up your dev environment or getting your "Hello world" app to work because other people will encounter those things too.

And just writing about something will help reinforce what you're learning so you'll learn faster and forget less.

Blog using jupyter so others can analyze your work.

Sure it makes sense! Just blog about the things you learn. You will probably end up blogging about things that are new to other people.

Best example I know of is Julia Evans [1]. She blogs about the things she learns in areas many people are mot an expert of. I find most of her blogs very interesting.

[1] https://jvns.ca

100% - writing isn't about having readers from day one. It's about learning how to express yourself. I've been blogging for 6 years now. When I started I had no idea what I wanted to talk about, so I just used it to flush out thoughts I had.

You will find an audience as you find your voice. What you hae to say will resonate as you get better at writing (±12 months of consistent writing is a good rule of thumb to start building a readership).

Forget money. Forget "professional network" even. Just focus on having conversations with people who are passionate about things you're passionate about. If you're lucky, you'll interview a hero of yours.

It's completely fine (and will likely help make you better in the fields you blog about and better at communication in general, which is gold.) Of course you wouldn't want to misstate your experience or qualifications, but it doesn't sound like you were contemplatin that anyway.

And if you are able to communicate what you are doing and why, it will be a help to people who are in roughly the same position as you with an interest in the same thing, which is great.

Someone who has just learned something is in the best position to teach that thing to others.

If you are an an expert in a topic it can be hard to understand which aspects of that thing are non-obvious to beginners.

Do it

Trying to put what you think you know into words is a powerful way of finding out how well or not you really know the subject. Bonus: You'll find you hear from people in the same position as you which gets you encouragement, makes contacts and keeps your motivation high

Pressing 'publish' on my first blog post was nerve-wracking but really there was nothing to worry about. Do it

It's a great idea! Every act of doing, especially new things can only lead to new skills being developed. It's free, why not! There can only be benefits, documenting the journey of learning. Search for "Gary Vaynerchuk Document VS Create", a nice piece (blog, also a video) about the benefits of it.

Do it dude!

Do it.

I recently started writing gists (https://gist.github.com/CarlMungazi) about the stuff I'm learning whilst reading through the source code of a framework I use at work.

I'm not expecting to understand everything and I will probably get some things wrong (reading source code is difficult) but in the short time I've been doing this I've already learnt a lot.

Blog everything that costs you more than x minutes to figure out, especially when you didn't find a relevant StackOverflow post or similar.

Yes, do it. 100 times yes. While you write blog posts to recap your experiences, and you do it carefully, you will often find details and answers that you didn't find before and thus deepen your understanding. Kind of like taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. So even if nobody reads your blog posts (and they will be read by someone), it's worth it.

Yes absolutely you will learn about yourself and the tech.

Of course do it! - pretty much I'm doing it with couple restarts since 2011: http://lukaszkups.net ;)

Definitely. I was in exactly the same position, and just started blogging about stuff as I built it.

'Experts' often don't explain the simple stuff as they assume everyone knows it already. Often, reading about someone's experience as they were first learning a technology is far more useful than trying to learn from an 'expert'.

An you'll be suprised about being 'attractive for recruiters.' I wrote a tiny post about setting up a MongoDB and Flask 'Hello World' app. I definitely wasn't an expert, and the post had flaws, but it still led to a job and a book deal :)

I started WristWatchReview.com when I wanted to learn about watches. I was dumb for a long time and still am but I know a little bit more now. Go for it.

I started WristWatchReview.com when I wanted to learn about watches. I was dumb for a long time and still am but I know a little bit more now. Go for it.

I think so. My blog is a mix of everything (personal, technical, random). It is a really good way to learn to be a better communicator. Especially when you have trouble keeping thoughts in order.

It also takes time to get better at writing in general so (IMO) the sooner you start the better.

I never consider myself an expert (in anything), even though I think I am competent and get paid to work so clearly my skills are of use.

Do it!!! When you're feeling better about your writing, you can archive old content or start a new blog. Write because you want to and to share you learnings. Write about the process of learning, beyond the end result. Take notes as you figure things out so you can share the missteps along the way. I think many would find that useful. I did with a glusterfs post I read recently.

As long as you put disclaimers like "This part I'm not completely proficient but I made it work." whenever appropriate, you should definitely do it. You don't need to be an expert to blog, but only humble.

It sounds like you already know the answer:

> I just think it could help me learn more, faster and to improve my communications skills.

Two reasons to blog while you're learning something:

1. When one person teaches, two people learn.

2. Writing things down helps sharpen your own understanding of that topic.

3. (Bonus) You may think nobody would find it useful because there are already so many articles out there about X or Y, but just think about how many times you've been helped by a blog post or tip from some little no-name blog. You may not think of yourself as an expert but there are certainly people out there who know even less than you, who may find your posts helpful.

I think almost everyone should have a blog and write about whatever they feel comes to mind/on any topic they want. Even if they're not a good writer, it's another great skill to learn! I find writing to be incredibly therapeutic.

As long as the expectations are reasonably set that it will 99.9% likely never develop an audience or make any money, and is instead a creative outlet and a way to develop your own skills, you'll enjoy it way more.