The benefits of publishing tech articles

I’ve previously blogged about the benefits of hosting a meetup, but I’m equally enthusiastic about the benefits of writing and publishing technical articles. I think everyone benefits from knowledge sharing. I also think the primary beneficiary is the author. I’ll share why in this post.

Benefits of publishing technical articles

1. You become mentally sharper and learn the technology better

   It’s easy to know a solution well enough but not completely. Once we get a problem solved or solution working, it’s tempting to move on mentally.

   Why did it work? What else could go wrong? What alternatives are there? Answering these questions in writing - sometimes with code samples - forces specific knowledge and mental clarity.

2. You can easily repeat solutions

   This happens to me often. I get asked for a solution and point to an in-depth article I’ve written. Time saved!

3. Build a reputation publicly and internally

   This is the same benefit that I pointed out for meetup hosts. You don’t need to be an industry voice or thought leader to build a reputation as someone with valuable knowledge and skills.

4. Help others with technical problems

   Someone has a problem and comes across your article. You’ve already helped! Some of these people will then reach out to you with thanks, or to ask for help or clarification. If you decide to help them further, you almost always walk away with more knowledge, a new contact, a way to improve your solution, or all three.

5. Build new and related skills

   Related to technical writing, you’ll probaly develop these skills further:

   • become more succinct
   • find time-saving ways to take notes
   • learn basic hosting, blogging, and web dev skills
   • greater appreciation of serverless / free / automated systems
   • networking with others

Challenges and advice

1. Getting started is the hardest part. Plenty of folks have told me they intend to start blogging or writing, but never have. I won’t give advice. It’s easy to start and you have nothing to lose.

2. Corporate standards. At F5 we have marketing guidelines that we must follow. They are standard requirements, like referring to product names with correct capitalization or not using acronyms without explaining them first. It saves a lot of time to read through these guidelines when you start.

3. Code samples are great. All code will age, so I try to be specific about any versions my sample is based on. Ideally, I won’t update/maintain code samples. Short code samples are helfpul when they are explained in context.

4. Full working demos, unlike small code samples, can be a trap! In my first few articles I included links to github repos that were full working examples. It wasn’t long before I was haunted by updates required (cloud providers, terraform versions, etc). Now I almost never provide an example or demo.

Closing thoughts

I think that publishing articles, or even just blogging, can only benefit those that write, read, or review them. If you’re an engineer of any kind and have never written technical articles, I encourage you to give it a shot!