Why write

This sort of thing seems like it's always a nice first blog post. Why write?

• Writing, or more broadly communication, is very important. At higher levels of any career, such as software engineering since I guess I'm in that field, clear communication is key. Otherwise your leverage is limited. So like anything else, you should practice!
• It's useful to document thoughts and notes. Documentation helps you search through your own thoughts (in a very literal sense), and it prevents you from losing thoughts.
• Writing publicly in particular accrues you a few advantages: free feedback, gaining influence/serendipity (if you write useful things and advertise them well), etc. And when you group more writing over time, there are some compounding effects.
• Writing is a forcing function for coherent thinking. Teaching or trying to convey information means you have to know the content yourself quite well.
• Writing is a nice form of legacy. Your frozen thoughts are useful, even after you've stopped thinking about them, to others who happen to stumble across them. And the thoughts you now consider obvious may be quite novel to someone else.

Another question is, why a blog in particular?

• I own the distribution.
• Sure, watching YouTube videos is a lot easier, but I'm not ready for the production overhead.
• Text is a good form for complicated arguments, code, etc. And I want to support all those sorts of things, just in case.

And some other important considerations are, why should I write, and why should I write now? I acknowledge thoughts of real novelty in a blog (or anywhere for that matter) are rare, but I think on occasion I might have something interesting to say, or at least successfully entertain someone out there for a little bit. I've been out there in the real world doing something for a little while, and I'm optimistic something has come of it that's worth sharing, if only I can find it. I also hope to tease some writing out of my friends who might be reading this, since I know a lot of people who have a lot of interesting things to say.

It's probably worth concluding with some disclaimers, for whatever legal and reputational benefit they may have:

• My thoughts might change on something after writing.
• Assume my thoughts don't reflect the view of any employers.
• Public writing can't be completely honest, meaning I'll have to distort or omit out of necessity. I would like to preserve privacy, encourage positivity and forgiveness, and choose carefully when and how to be controversial.