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Anti-Patterns in Software Blogging

simonwillison.net original

Anti-Patterns in Software Blogging (via) Some excellent writing advice from Michael Lynch. Michael warns against "meandering intros", misjudging your reader's existing knowledge, assuming they'll read your previous posts, and excessive formality.

He also warns against overreliance on links as an excuse not to explain terminology. This one hurt! I do this all the time, but I have a nagging suspicion that almost nobody ever clicks on them.

(In a Lobste.rs comment Michael clarifies that "My rule of thumb is that my article should still make sense to the reader even if they don't click any links". That works for me.)

This point about using your own voice is crucial:

Beginner software bloggers suffer from a mass delusion that you have to write in a stiff, overly formal way for people to take you seriously [...]

Just write the way you talk.

With so many developers delegating their writing to AI, software blogging is becoming bland and homogenous. Readers are hungry for writing with personality.