Why Budding Coders Need To Blog

8 Reasons Why Budding Coders Need to Blog

It can be very easy for a developer to dismiss blogging as a method of highlighting their coding prowess, given their familiarity with another kind of writing.
In this post we explore exactly why coders, especially learners need to write about what they’re doing. Let’s start with the basics – it boosts your grasp of the written word.

Blogging Sharpens Your Writing

The project-end of coding bootcamp is when students are at their most exhausted point. Think of writing a dissertation, but having to build a website to put it on.
The last thing you want to do when you’ve crafted a wonderful working website / app is to fill each page with content – “it works goddamnit!”
The temptation to cut ‘n’ paste Lorem Ipsum grows very strong at 3am the night before submission. Writing a short-form blog even once-a-week (only 12 blogs!) will make written and visual content the easiest part of your project.
Blogging experience will make you more comfortable with the content that you ultimately put on your website.
There are of course handy tools like Polish my Writing and CoSchedule that can help the non-literary coder fill in the blanks.
You’ll be able to string together syntactically sound sentences in seconds. This’ll save you time and much consternation in that final stretch… or you could just Lorem Ipsum…

Craft Your Personal Narrative

Every wonder why there are so many underdog stories about people starting businesses in basements or garages? Why elaborate rags to riches stories seem to accompany most modern tech monoliths?
Put simply, the journey is as inspirational as the end result. They’re usually true but with some creative licence on their biography.
Here are two examples of the same founder story.

“Steve Jobs founded Apple with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976”

 

“With the help of Steve Wozniak, Ronald Wayne and his sister, Steve Jobs built a computer empire from his garage”

The second story is more enthralling than the first because it adds human struggle, achievements and camaraderie. Begin carving out who you are, what you’re learning and how you achieve your goals – you’ll have enough to craft your own founder story before long.

Build a Network

Your blog is a great way for other programmers to discover what you’re all about. What languages you like, what aspect of coding interests you – they’ll even help you out if you ask nicely.
This isn’t just limited to coder-tailored Git & GitHub, if you’re a Twitter user you’ve probably noticed how active the programming community is. Sharing your posts with a little twist of digital marketing skills can make it easy to get connected to people.
Each language – Python, JavaScript etc – has it’s own sub-community with supportive libraries. Writing your blog is a way to get involved in the diffusion of ideas and to passively explain your problems or successes to your peers.
You’ll learn more, discover more projects and begin to immerse yourself in a thriving ecosystem.

Support Your Network

On a basic level, showing how you solved a programming problem is a great way for your fellow coders to solve it too. Step-by-step, at the same level of skill.
If you dive a bit deeper, you’ll find the effects far more positive than that.
As we mentioned before, coding can involve late nights and tiring testing – if you can’t solve a problem it’s quite easy to grow disheartened. Blogging about your triumph over a tricky task tells others – particularly coding bootcampers – a few things.

1. This problem is simpler than it appears to be, I just need to stay at it.
2. Someone else has struggled with this, I’m not alone.
3. Maybe I can help other people too?

Use your blog as a force for good, or just boast about how complex and inaccessible your codebase is. Whatever you think will make you stand out!

Easily Impress Employers

Employers love that our graduates finish with projects to showcase their coding skills. That’s why we have a project-based outcome system.
Even with that, not all employers can understand the complexities that go into software development – so it’s generally easier to show & tell.
Writing a blog is a way of showing your rapid skill development across a number of coding languages and technologies.
Think about it! When you’re writing your CV, you detail your accomplishments from job to job, academia to academia. Your blog is just a more detailed timeline.
“In January 2017, I helped Company X achieve an 80% increase on Y using Z,” is a clear metric for most. Understanding the DOM and its application to web development isn’t always as clear cut.
With a blog, potential employers can get a feel for what kind of developer you are, and your cultural fit. They can also see your personal story, how you interact with others and that you’re keen to be part of a community.
For want of a better phrase – show them how the sausage is made (in a good way!).

Blogging Helps Others Support You

Fanfare, rallying, support, cheering – the great intangible that spurs on the charges of men and women.
A phenomenon referred to as “the 12th man” in team sports, supporters can be absolutely vital with Bootcamp-style learning. It can be tricky to bring people around though…
NFL team, the Seattle Seahawks have a quaking stadium filled with thousands of fervent fans who bay them to victory when they play. I’m sure most of your friends and family barely even know what coding is…
Writing a blog is a great way of helping people learn – in the simplest terms – what it is you’re achieving and get them behind your life-changing journey.
Writing helps people understand that you’re in programming Beast Mode.

Contextualise Your Learning Experience

Learning to code can be draining whether you’re learning online or working full-time in class. There’s little time for anything other than coding.
Late nights spent scrutinising exception messages, endless streams of coffee with eyes redder than the Terminator’s – this all seems standard when you’re in the thick of it.
Writing a blog about your experience is a good way of contextualising where you are and figure out how far you’ve come. Most students don’t realise what they’ve accomplished until they’ve submitted their projects!

Between “Hello World” and “Hello New Career!” you’ll learn languages, build frameworks, debug code, break keyboards (well…) and you should document it all!

 

At this point, I’d be inclined to quote a storied author like Robert Frost to wrap up the journey but Billy Joel does a pretty good job.
“I am no longer afraid of becoming lost, because the journey back always reveals something new, and that is ultimately good for the artist.”
When you get lost, journey back and refocus on why you’re going through this in the first place. Keep taking stock and give yourself a buoying pat-on-the-back.

We’ll Feature Your Blog on Ours

We want all of our students to succeed, so we try to help in every way we can. If you’re a Code Institute student, we’ll feature your blog on ours.
It’s simple! Just start writing and posting, send us a link and we’ll get to work. We want to give all of our exceptional students a platform for success and we want to know more about their hard work.
Get in touch! After all, you never know who could wind up reading this.

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