Why Blogging

"Hey Blog!" was the catch phrase of one of the most popular blogs I grew up with in Norway. It was back in the days when the term "influencer" wasn't even a term yet, and the blogs that I got exposed to were mainly driven by young girls and boys looking to share their life and views with the world. They would bring up problems regarding mobbing, how to do makeup, fashion, fatshaming, and other topics that were on our minds then. Nowadays I'm reading blogs on a weekly basis to find opinions on tech topics or learn how to implement a technical feature. The blogs I read and are exposed to have changed drastically, but I think that, at it's core, the reasoning for writing blogs are still the same.

For You

I think that one of the main reasons to write blogs should be about yourself. Simply by writing and posting blogs you gain many interesting benefits that can't be easily found elsewhere.

Rubber Duck Effect

The rubber duck effect is the act of explaining a problem to another party that is supposed to listen and not come with any input except occasional nodding (like a rubber duck), and simply by presenting the problem, a solution is then found. I think that the same can be applied to blogging. By explaining a concept or solution to someone on the internet (whom usually won't answer anything back), you are finding new perspectives and insights to what you're trying to explain.

Wording your thoughts

Who hasn't been in a meeting with a clear feeling that something is supposed to be one way, but isn't able to express it properly? I remember being in a typical tech discussion about testing layers with perhaps an unsuprisingly amount of disagreement. In the end, we all figured that we more or less had the exact same opinions, we just weren't able to express them in a way that were understood by the other parties. Not being able to properly word your thoughts is a common problem, and one solution is to write it down and find the perfect phrasing for that exact situation. Even better is when other people can give you feedback on your thoughts, and help you improve how you phrase your statements, or even change your opinion altogether.

Reflecting on written content

The fact that what you write is there in black and white on the internet ensures that you think about what you write, like really think. No one wants to post dumb ideas to the internet, especially when their names are attached to it, cause as we know, things on the internet isn't easily erasable if unlucky. But the very fact that what you write and post to the internet is open for everyone to see forces you to reflect on what you're trying to say. Is it really meaningful? Does it make sense? Am I missing some points here? How about some other perspectives? What would someone with different views think?

Learn to be Wrong

Taking a stance and perhaps being wrong is really hard, especially when its publically available. But learning to be wrong from time to time, at least allowing yourself to be corrected, is an extremely important trait that will help you tremendously down the line. Who cares that you might've had a weird understanding of Dependency Injection concepts in 2023, if you learned from the following discussions and in 2025 are helping others get the concepts themselves. Not saying that you should pretend to know it for sure (like ChatGPT version 3.5 currently has with its hallucinations), but be open, allow yourself to present something that you don't need to be 100% sure about and present it as such, and then allow yourself to join the following discussion and be corrected if needed! An old Reddit joke was that the fastest to get an answer to your problem was to post something really wrong about it, and someone would within the shortest time correct you (and thereby give you the answer you wanted).

For The World

Although I think one of the main reasons to write blogs should be for yourself, another big motivator is also for it to be read by others and value being created during such a transaction.

Knowledge for Everyone

In the tech industry we are quite spoiled when it comes to information being available in heaps, and one of the main reasons is the culture to share what you know with others in order to collectively move forward. Such a system won't work if there are enough contributers and consumers, and being part of the contributing part can feel very rewarding!

Guides

Guides are perhaps one of the most typical kind of blog posts I read. They are usually concise and directly address the problem I'm having at the moment. In this sense, they bring great value to the consumer of that blog, and many times the consumer themselves becomes a contributer if they see that there are errors in the original post or the tech has moved forward and therefore it is not up to date anymore. It ties back to my last point, and especially showcases how a healthy system of knowledge sharing can boost productivity of people around the globe.

Conclusion

I find that the main reasons to write blogs, especially in the tech world where there are heaps out already, should initially be about you and what you gain from it yourself. Sure, there might be thousands of blogs about testing layers, but I think the benefits of writing it yourself more than outweighs the fact that it might not be read in the sea of posts. And perhaps, down the line, you make it to be the next Martin Fowler.

My Own Journey

There are probably many other points I haven't thought about, and personally I'm just starting this journey myself and have yet to learn what it would mean for me. Perhaps you have completely different thoughts about blogging and would like to share them? Awesome! For now I haven't set up a comment section, might be something I will set up if I see the need, but please send me an email with your thoughts to davidbilldal@gmail.com, and let's discuss it!