As a software developer sometimes I need to look myself at the mirror and ask: ‘What do I need to improve?’
Having a pile of projects in your personal library does not improve your skills, it just gives you a chance to be convinced that you are a skilled developer and that everyone should agree with your point of view.
One thing I noticed in these years is that if you can not see what you have built, then you can not grow, and if you are not growing, you are wasting time.
So, what is the point? I was searching for something that created a story for me. Something that could tell me what (and how) I have been doing through days, months and years. I needed to have a personal blog.
This brings some useful advantages:
The opportunity to analyze and see what is your way to do things and how it evolves in time is a priceless gift to do to yourself, and confronting your work with the community is what I call a killer-combo for growth.
Another bonus that comes with that is that you learn much faster when you have to explain a topic and writing a blog post or even a tutorial challenges you. You can only explain something if you deeply understand what you are talking about.
Let’s be honest, copying and pasting code from stackoverflow is not a great way to remember how you solved a problem. If you teach what you learned you will remember what kind of solution you adopted and why.
In 2020 you can share almost everything via the internet, but the most valuable thing is information. Helping people find a way to learn something is great, just think about how many times you searched for something and there was someone out there that already solved the issue for you. Plus, it’s free.
Blogging as a software developer is awesome, you can create any sort of connection, from awesome developers to good job contracts. Just keep your standards as high as possible, someone will notice you for sure.