Blogging Philosophy

I started blogging fairly recently (started in Sep 2018). I find it to be a superb technique for strengthening my understanding of a certain topic and clearing my thoughts. For a long time, I used to subscribe to the idea that one should blog about a topic after they’ve gained mastery over it through multiple years of practice. But following the advice of many smart people who I hold in high regard, I decided to start blogging this year.

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I mainly blog about things I learn as part of my journey towards becoming a proficient Data Scientist. I make it a conscious effort to structure my posts in the form of learning tracks by providing the necessary context where needed. That said, writing tutorials for beginners is not my motive for this blog. My primary goal behind composing a write-up on something is to bolster my comprehension of it and to have a reference to look back on in the future. Along the way, it might also help somebody who has a similar grasp of the topic as me or is one step behind me on that particular topic. I learnt that from Rachel Thomas.

The most important aspect of a blog post, in my opinion, is story-telling. I believe in setting up the context properly and then letting the content shape up along the way. I’m sure I’m not the only software dev who has trouble reading their own code written just a few months ago. Over time I’d like to improve the quality of story-telling in my posts and staying empathetic with my future self as well as the reader.

I’m a visual learner and I retain the most content on a topic by putting it in a visual context and jotting down notes on it. Physical paper is no good over the long term so I use Notability for that. I include drawings and illustrations that I compose in my posts.

I’m also a design nut. I try to keep the design language of this blog as minimal as possible. Though it can be a little annoying at times because I’m almost never satisfied with it. I keep trying to tweak the look of the site after being inspired by some front-end developer’s blog, and this cycle goes on. I guess I’ll just have to make my peace with it.

I’m writing this on December 31st so I’d be remiss if I didn’t summarise my ambitions for the blog in the future. I’d like to improve the quality of the writing and story-telling in my posts. I’d like to blog more frequently. I’d also like to write more on non-technical subjects including personal life and events.

fin.