04
June
2015
|
00:30 AM
America/Los_Angeles

Here Is Why Software Engineers Should Start Blogging...

It's a pleasure to be working at Delphix with such a world-class engineering team. Our CTO is Adam Leventhal, one of the authors of DTrace, a truly revolutionary application. It allows engineers to monitor the performance and troubleshoot very complex IT systems.

It is like having X-ray vision into the heart of the data center. To put it bluntly, DTrace is one of the key technologies that enables the modern digital world that we take for granted.


Adam, and fellow authors Bryan Cantrill and Mike Shapiro won many prizes and accolades for DTrace, including the top prize in the Wall Street Journal's Technology Innovation Awards competition in 2006.

Here's Adam's presentation advocating blogging for engineers:


It's ironic that Adam is encouraging young engineers to blog when it was the engineering community that were the first, and most enthusiastic bloggers.

Ten years ago, blogging was how engineers landed their next job by showing their expertise. These days it is probably their GitHub activity that counts.

Some of Adam's tips from more than ten years of blogging:

- Keep it simple.

- Everyone needs an editor — find someone you trust.

- Start writing now so that you can get better at it.

- Blogging is good for your career.

I would add:

- Blogging helps create space in your mind for new ideas.

- After a little while you do it because you are driven to do it.

- Don't worry about second guessing what readers will like, do it because the topic interests you — that way you've at least pleased one person!

 

Here's more advice from Adam: Lessons from a decade of blogging


Early on blogging seemed hokey. Today it still can feel hokey — dispatches that feel directed at no one in particular. But I’d encourage just about any engineer to start a blog. It forces you to organize your ideas in a different and useful way, and it connects you with the broader community of users, developers, employees, and customers....

I got (slightly) better the only way I knew how: repetition. Get the first 100 posts out of the way so that you can move on to the next 100. Don’t worry about readership. Don’t worry about popularity. Interesting content will find an audience... Just start writing.


 

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Adam Leventhal (programmer) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Adam Leventhal's blog » Joining Delphix

Adam Leventhal's blog » Lessons from a decade of blogging

DTrace - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia