David Chen

Software Engineer
San Francisco Bay Area

A new blog

I started my first blog around 2005. It was during the heyday of Blogger and Windows Live Spaces. Wordpress was around too, but it wasn't as popular among my friends.

My motivation at the time was to improve my English (my second language). I admired bloggers who had a strong command of English, and would try to emulate their style using words I didn't understand.

Like many high schoolers, I mostly wrote about relationships and school. As I entered college, I began to find my blog embarassing. So immature! So I stopped blogging and deleted everything.

I've been on a writing hiatus since then. I wish I hadn't deleted my old blog --- it'd be an interesting memory lane to walk down.

Why I started a new blog

I made this blog on a whim to learn Eleventy, not because I felt an urge to write again. But as I reflect on why I should write more, two reasons stand out: embracing my fear, and organizing my thoughts.

I've always been curious, and slightly terrified, of how other people might judge me. The fear of judgement followed me into adulthood, and led to my reluctance to publicize my work. I don't think this is a healthy trait to keep.

There are also many good reasons to write. I especially like these posts by Nathan Marz, which I've read years ago but never acted on. In particular, these paragraphs resonated with me:

Writing reveals holes in your thinking. When your ideas are written and looking back at you, they're a lot less convincing than when they're just in your head. Writing forces you to mature your ideas by thinking through counterarguments.

Writing helps you organize your thoughts in a coherent way. This makes you a much better conversationalist when these topics come up. I can't count the number of times I've had deeper conversations with people because I had matured my ideas offline.

--- Nathan Marz

I'm sure many prolific writers in the tech industry, like Paul Graham and patio11, have made similar remarks, or would be in agreement.

What I might write about

I'll focus on my work and interests.

I work in tech, and naturally spend a lot of time on programming. I often come across nifty programing tips on someone's blog. They've helped solve many problems at work.

For example, I recently read about using git-commit-graph to speed up git log --graph from a short blog post. It immensely improved my productivity.

I'll start with posts like that. I hope they get some hits on Google, and help other software apprentices like they did for me. I'll also write about things I learned (e.g. how I built this website), and maybe an occasional rant about the tech industry.

Will I be able to keep up the commitment, or will this blog die a slow death? Who knows? Only time will tell!