Do We Need Another Blog? #

It is tempting to think that in this age of high-speed internet, where videos are abundant, blogging might not be the thing to go with. Then for you, my questions would be, why do programmers write blogs? And why is Medium so popular? Do people go to GeekForGeeks or TowardsDataScience?

Yes, some part of blogging might have evolved into vlogging but blogs still exist and people enjoy reading them. If not for the amusement, we read for the information (and knowledge) it has to share. In my opinion, blogging is an easier way to deliver, compared to videos, where you’d have to worry about at least ten different things.

In case you wonder, Medium had 60 million monthly readers in 2017 and 234.5 million in March 2021

What Made Me Write A Blog #

Within a few weeks of starting with programming (in C), I discovered Lua and the products that use it (e.g. World of Warcraft, Civilizations, nmap) and it was amazing to see that a language so small and simple, written by two people as a utility for their use specifically for scripting other programs (I didn’t know how JavaScript came to existence just yet, lol), like you’d use Python to tell Blender what to do. The idea of using another programming language to “enhance” a program written in, yet another programming language seemed quite interesting to me. Around the same time, I discovered DeepMind’s Atari playing AI, which they wrote in, you guessed it, Lua!

However, it didn’t take me very long to discover that only a handful of people around me had heard about Lua. Yet everyone knew the existence of C/C++, Java and SQL). So I decided to learn more and write a book on Lua in my language Bangla (Lua was that awesome to me). But as time went on, I learnt more about software and programming languages it became clear to me that programmers do not use Lua as much as I thought. It was about to start dying. Hence, the idea of writing a Bangla book on Lua had to enter the cryogenic chamber.

Cool Things Are Always Cool #

Still, the idea of writing a book on something and helping people to know more about cool things never really left me. Every time I see a fellow programmer, I cannot resist the urge to talk to them about the cool thing/feature/technique I discovered last week and what they have to say about their cool new project!

Nowadays, cool things pop up so often that it is hard to decide on which one to use on a project. Even though I have rarely read any review post, I wanted to write about these things so that I can at least help a handful of people making some decisions when they are overwhelmed with information (only if StackOverflow mods didn’t slap “opinion-based” on those questions). Plus, I get to talk about cool things with a wide range of people!

Reading Blogposts After Blogposts #

As a programmer, I don’t know just how many blog posts I have read so far within these few years. But be it a technical post or some fish food review post, reading was always easier than watching a video for me (although I admit, I watch way too much YouTube). Plus, the sense of credibility that comes with reading is a bit unmatched (in my opinion), compared to watching a video. I don’t know why do I have this, but it is just always there. Probably because most of the blog posts I had read were telling the truth on how to use the software or to solve the problem at hand.

For New Programmers #

Upon entering university, the first thing I discovered about students learning to do software was that they lacked good learning material (despite the abundance). I’m not talking about books per se. I am talking about “case studies”, which explain what is going on and why it was done, without too much or too few details. As hobby programmers, we all learn because we want to and we like it. This is not the case with a freshman in a comp-sci program. More importantly, more or less all of them have issues understanding or adapting to the same feature and/or concept.

So as a way to help them out, blogging might be the right track for me (although I admit, I am not that good of a programmer, I never was). For my classmates, I might solve some of the assignments here (after the deadline of course, like writeups) to help them understand their material.

For Myself #

A freelancer needs to build up a reputation and a place to showcase their work. Blogging can be a way to portray one’s knowledge and expertise on a topic and increase outreach. It has been a year since I started freelancing yet, whenever I had to look for jobs, I always had a feeling that the client does not have a way to assess my understanding or my skills. It is an issue when you are just starting and you don’t have any projects to show them. Lastly, writing is a way of enforcing your knowledge on yourself!

Although I am sure programming is not the only topic I will be writing on. I can already see my next post is not being related to programming at all… 😅