I am finally getting into blogging. For real. I've been wanting to do it for a long time, but never committed to it. Why not?

Well obviously, blogging takes time! Which means I must make it a priority. But to make blogging a priority, it must have value. I have plenty of things to do - among them, enjoy myself with my girlfriend and our daughter, learn about programming and write programs. All of these have obvious value to me, but what is the value of blogging?

I read a lot of blogposts while learning tech topics, and that is one value: Good blogposts are a great resource for others to learn from. This is why I've wanted to get into blogging, but it hasn't been enough. Sure, other people may benefit from reading my blog, but what do I get?

For the last couple of months I have been trying to learn so many new subjects. Functional programming with F#, DDD, CQRS, Event Sourcing, configuration management and orchestration with ansible, managing a development environment with vagrant, Android development, JavaScript, AngularJS - the list goes on. Some of those have been (and are!) an exercise in frustration, as I just want to get things done but keep discovering things I need to learn.

When I'm juggling that many topics I find that I forget a lot. I may have learned something just a month ago, but have to relearn it tomorrow. This is where I find blogging might create some value for me. I figure, if I have to sit down and write about what I learn it should stick better. If it doesn't, I will at least have a log with everything I forgot.

Another thing that has kept from blogging is perfectionism. Misspellings and misplaced punctuation can really annoy me, or make me laugh. Misinformation makes me furious. That attitude might be useful at times, but it also gets in the way.

I just watched Ignorance is strength yesterday, which is a nice 20 minute talk on how writing while overcoming ignorance can help create great documentation. I found the talk very inspiring, and will help me relax my perfectionism. Writing this blog will be a personal exercise in "worse is better". I will misspell words, misplace punctuation, use the wrong terms and get things wrong. But I will have to be okay with that.

But as I mentioned, misinformation makes me furious, and I don't want anyone to walk away from my blog misinformed. So to all you who know more than me: I hope you will help me and others to learn by correcting any mistakes I make. Get in touch, or leave a comment.

In summary, this is my blog, and I write it for two purposes: firstly, my own learning; secondly, as a resource for others to learn from.