Sharing your knowledge as a developer

We have all met that developer. The one who holds on to their knowledge like Smaug hoards gold.

They seem to have this feeling, that if they share what they know it is somehow going to make them less of an expert.

What makes an expert, however, is that ability to share what they know, in a way that is accessible for others.

You don’t have to be an expert to do this. You just need to know a little more than someone else. It can be really useful to others to share your learnings along the way.

Once you have been a developer for 10 years, it can be difficult to put yourself in the shoes of the beginner.

They call this the “curse of knowledge” and it is a cognitive bias that makes people think that the person they are talking to knows as much as they do.

Patrick McKenzie @patio11

This concludes, for the moment, an off-the-cuff list of things which would otherwise be too obvious to bring up in conversation. Meta thought: you radically underestimate both a) how much you know that other people do not and b) the instrumental benefits to you of publishing it.

One regret I have, as a developer, is not starting a blog sooner or keeping up a regular posting schedule.

If I started a blog when I started software development, I would be in a much better position than I am now.

A blog not only can be a great resource for other developers, it can also be another source of income. It gives you a platform to share what you know with others and it is one you actually own, unlike building an audience on social media.

I only have 46 blog posts on my website, which isn’t much considering I started in 2015. I now get around 5,000 people a month visiting my blog, but I would be getting a lot more if I had been consistent over that period.

So if you haven’t got a blog start one today, share your knowledge, you won’t regret it.

If you are looking for a free blogging platform, I can recommend Hashnode. Unlike other blogging platforms, it is targeted at developers, which really is helpful when it comes to promoting your blog posts.

If your posts get featured on Hashnode they also get shared with their followers on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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