All engineers are good writers… of code. But I believe that in order to a become better engineer–you should improve your writing skills. (View Highlight)
What helps us cement our knowledge–is writing. That’s why I believe in writing code, as opposed to copying code snippets. Because when you type it–you cement that knowledge. (View Highlight)
If you want to learn a new topic–write about it. When I want to learn a new programming language, I write a short program using that programming language. When I want to understand how something works–I write an article on this blog about it. (View Highlight)
Real writing, where you try to dig the truth, will require you to try and experiment. I’ve learned more by writing articles on this blog, than by reading programming books. (View Highlight)
How many times we are asked to prepare a design document, while we think to ourselves, “What for? The design is so simple, I can hold it in my head easily.” This is a big misconception, we all fall for. If we would actually write the design document, we would have identified so many problems with our “simple” design. Things like–inconsistencies, missing details, or simply “lazy” thinking our brain did, which in reality make no sense. (View Highlight)
Remember–reading is a habit, writing is a skill. And in order to prefect your skill, you need to write more. (View Highlight)
Writing design reviews, and documentations–at your workplace–is an easy way to get into writing. You will have to do it anyway, so why not improve while writing? However, if you want to improve your writing further, outside your workplace, consider starting a blog. If writing a blog is intimidating for you, consider answering questions on Stackoverflow–but focus on providing textual content, rather than copy-pasting code snippets. (View Highlight)
One last advice–abolish the copy-paste. So many developers, whom I mentored, simply copy-paste everything. Code snippets, function declarations, etc. I know how to initialize a git repository, because I do it by hand every time. Most people simply copy the instructions from GitHub or Google. And if you are scared about being unproductive–remember that you are not judged by how much code you write, or how fast you complete the assignment. (View Highlight)
