Timing Was Everything

Anyone want to take my spot?

And I guess the question is “Why now?”

At the start of January 2021, I sat down and planned to start writing articles on my software development experiences, little tips and ideas that could be useful to others. I wrote about twelve posts and then…

Knowing when to call it quits

I stopped.

I took a step back and evaluated whether I wanted to continue, deciding that actually I didn’t feel like I did. There were a number of reasons for that.

• Commitments

  Things in my personal life take priority. After a day at work, doing family things and everything in between, the last thing I felt that I needed to do was sit down and write. I wanted to sit down and switch off. Trying to think about something programming or technology related that was worthwhile spending time to write, edit and post was not giving me the separation of work/life that I needed.
  I had ideas of things to post about - things on Imposter Syndrome, other little Swift experiments and utilities - but was it anything to (excuse the pun) write home about? Not really.

• Walk the trodden path
  On that subject, what could I add that wasn’t covered elsewhere? Or more specifically, what did I think I could add? I read other iOS blogs, I read other tech websites, I pretend to understand half of what HackerNews is talking about, and they are covering the same ground I was and more consistently.
  If I were to write something about Imposter Syndrome, what value would I add? I couldn’t see much. Without seeing the value in the deliverable, then there was no value in my time spent writing it.

• I don’t have to
  This is an interesting one.
  I think there is a trend that to be a top performer, contributor, engaged member of the community then you need to write and write consistently. That having a presence online validates and emboldens you and your skillset, and that not having that puts you at a disadvantage. That your career is negatively impacted by not posting content.

  I don’t think I agree with that thought.

  I think that there are people who have a talent for writing but writing doesn’t mean you have a talent for it.
  I think that there are software developers who enjoy spending their time writing, as there are developers who enjoy spending their time playing video games or music or taking long walks and none of those activities take precedence over the other or is a more valuable use of that time because one happens to be searchable in Google. I think that writing is a pastime not an obligation and I don’t like feeling obliged to do something in lieu of another activity that I’d rather be doing.

  And I appreciate the hypocrisy and humour in me saying that in a blog post.

  LOL

Answers

In my first post, I posed myself four questions. I could answer one and four back then.

• What do I really have to say?
• Why would anyone care what I have to say?
• What if people don’t like/care about what I have to say?
• Can I be bothered to go through the effort of making a website?

And now I’m able to answer two and three.

• Likely not, but I suppose that wasn’t the purpose and I didn’t do anything expecting engagement.
• Luckily nobody told me anything either way.

And that’s cool. I think I’ll keep this up for posterity, web crawlers and the off-chance that someone stumbles upon it and finds it useful. But as a maintained entity with new things each month? fuhgeddaboudit.

So without further ado….