Why Blog? Why Open Source? Why Learning Log?

Recently I wrote about how I write for myself and mostly because I forget stuff. I think I can find more reasons to write - the more, the better. It’ll make me write more! So, I remember reading this concept of Learning in Public, but I just remembered the phrase not the whole concept later, until recently when I read this post about learning in public - and few other posts related to it

I was astonished at how some folks had some thoughts like me. I remember wanting to go to an Open Source company and I still do. And I was trying to understand what benefits I would get out of it. I realized that once I join an Open Source company, I’ll be primarily doing Open Source. And I consider that cool and I also consider it as a portfolio for my work - people can literally see the work I do, it’s all public. Usually people go to interviews and during the interview, they talk about their work in previous companies. But, it’s all talk. They would write some code, show diagrams, yes, but it’s still all talk. But unfortunately that’s all folks can do right? Since their previous companies do not allow talking about their secret sauce or showing the exact contributions of a person, which is code, again, intellectual property. But when it’s Open Source, it’s all public, out in the Open. Everyone can see it. And your commits are out there, and the code and PRs and comments - tech discussions, your good communication with other folks in GitHub and slack and other communities, it’s all in there. It’s your public image. You are out in the Open. Every cool thing you do, adds to your resume, shows people what you can really do and more. In this post you can see a similar thought on how people need to be able to do work that they can show - to show their capability, and it talks about how Open Source work is like portable between companies and more cool thoughts! Really great post :)

Also, when I think about it - whatever work I do, I need to be able to talk something about it. I mean, I’m an application developer and now I go meet someone, or go to an interview, and now I need to prove that I’m good at what I do - to get some business deal, or get a job, or something of that sort. Now, how do I do that? How do I say to someone that I’m good at what I do? I mean, I could work with them, for a few hours, may be for a day, or even a few days, and then they can see my work, actually, may be notice my work. But hey, who has all that time? That’s not even practical, right? So, the other person isn’t going to work with you immediately or work enough with you to see your skills, but you still gotta prove you are good enough with whatever you have got - all the different kind of interview processes, including coding, whiteboarding, pairing and what not. Pairing is where you pair program with the interviewer. Anyways, whatever it may be, it might not be enough to talk about all your past work and also to show the skills you have got based on those. So, how does someone know you are actually good enough? Since that’s the truth. You are good enough. But they haven’t seen you work, they are just going to interview for a few minutes or hours. I’m one of those people who thinks interviews are crazy and it’s crazy that your near future depends on just a few interviews that are just for a few hours. My perspective is the same for school and college exams. Anyways, back to the question - so, how do I prove I really know something? How do I say I know my job and I have done it well and will be able to do it well, and that I’m not just all mouth - talking about the work, but show that I have done it too. How do I prove that? Some ideas I have got are these - first know what all you know. Meaning, know yourself, know your skills, including soft skills. So, what do you work on everyday now? What have you been working on for months and years now? Do you have a list of skills you have acquired? Do you know how you acquired them? (This will help you mentor others!!) And do you know the depth of your knowledge? These are all key questions. For example, I for one know that I’m really really bad at depth, but with breadth - I’m okay, like decent. Not great there too. But the usual advice is to go the T shaped learning model - where you have quite some breadth, and have depth in one thing. Anyways, back to the proving part. So, how do you even answer all the questions I asked? By just recalling what all you did? 🙈 Might work for you. Never works for me. I don’t have that great a memory. So, I note things down. I try to. But it’s not easy. I’m still getting there. Ideally noting down everything would be awesome but it’s very very hard and not exactly practically because it’s time consuming. 😅 Okay, back on track. Now, some good benefits to nothing things down is this - even if I forget, I get to revisit the notes I have. And then if the notes are public, like in my blog or somewhere, it’s a living document to tell I have done something and learned something - I can go back and learn from the notes again too, if I forget that is (I forget sometimes. Shh :P). Others can also check my notes out and understand my hands on experience. If someone asks me what I did all these years while working, I can check all my notes, and blog posts and what not and tell them one by one about what I was doing and what I know. Or I could just ask them to just refer all the links I give em and they can check it out themselves? ;) Other than this, all the open source work, it’s all in the open, anyone can check it out. Now someone can see how your work looks like. Nothing much to prove by talking. You just need to talk about how they need to check all the things you have put on the Internet all these years. And that’s it :) Also, hey, I have heard some people tell me - your work doesn’t speak on it’s own - so do some talking - show off your blogs, open source work, give some links and then people can verify whatever you say later with what you said and the links you give them. Sometimes people are just lazy, so, they won’t probably stalk you on the Internet before interviewing you, or they might, in any case you gotta do what you gotta do - learn to show your skills, but with proof this time ;)

I guess I’ll keep finding and blogging about more reasons to blog and open source, and also write more about my existing reasons. These are just very few reasons.

My Blog - you are already here only :P

My Open Source work - my GitHub profile

My Learning Log - https://github.com/karuppiah7890/learning-log