Share The Knowledge

Looking for answers

A while back I read an article that suggested that every developer should blog about their experiences. Every time you try to figure something out, keep track of your trials, your errors, and your progress. Then blog about it. Put it out there for everyone to see, because someone somewhere is having the same issue you are.

I thought about that for quite some time. I thought about all the times I had an issue or didn’t know something. Thought about every Google search that resulted in a dead-end. Wishing there was a tutorial or even a simple blog post about it.

This is something that I’ve experienced both at the beginner level and at the more advanced level I am at now. The answers are not always there. I figured it must be because everyone is afraid to post. Either afraid of ridicule, or just experiencing Imposter’s Syndrome. Not thinking themselves worthy.

I hated writing

I realized I was describing myself, I was the one afraid to post. All of the time I spent figuring out the things I couldn’t find answers for. All the little libraries, adapters, and modules that I’ve written. Twenty years of PHP and Javascript experiences, at all levels, that I’ve never shared. I was the one that I was Googling for all this time.

So I decided to buck up and just do it. It may not be the best writing but as the article, I mentioned earlier, said. “It doesn’t matter how well you write. Don’t write it for the world. Just write it for yourself. Just F’N write”.

I became my own answers

We all have something to share. We all have experienced both good and bad, at all levels. There is always someone else out there that is having the same issue as us. We can all contribute a little.

For example, I remember wishing I had a walk-through tutorial the first time I decided to forgo the monolith “full-stack” frameworks and try to build an Object-Oriented framework from scratch. I didn’t realize how much “Magic” happened behind the scenes that I had no clue about.

At the time there were very few tutorials and most glossed over the things I needed. It’s the little things that some writers and developers take for granted that I could never find. Why did you put that there? Where did that magic object come from? What is the purpose of that what-cha-ma-call-it?

Being self-taught I don’t know all about “Design Patterns” or have the “Core Curriculum” knowledge that they teach in most Computer Science courses. It has all been trial and error for me for a couple of decades. There’s a lot of practical knowledge stuffed in this old bald head, I just need to get it past those “Senior Moments”.

Giving back

So I’ve decided to make my life, and other’s lives, easier in the future and document things as I build them. Creating blog posts that I could use as a reference in the future. Seeing as how someone might discover them while doing Google searches for expanding their own knowledge and find them useful. I’m going to write these as if I were teaching myself as the student and junior developer I used to be.

I hope you enjoy what comes out over the course of this experiment. Maybe even learn a few new tricks. Just remember, how I do things is not gospel. There are many ways to get the job done. This is just a snapshot of how I did it at this moment in history.

So, what is the first and most important lesson that I want to teach? It’s this. We have all needed help from time to time. So be the person you wish you had them. Be the teacher, be the mentor.

Share The Knowledge!

Edit: I found the article – how to blog about code and give zero fucks