Why should software engineers develop a writing habit?

In school, there is a distinction between "liberal arts students" and "science students", with different learning contents and different ways of thinking. I am a science student. My major in college was computer science. After graduation, I worked as a software engineer. In the process, I discovered that the gap between liberal arts and science could never be bridged. Many engineers I see are afraid of writing articles, while liberal arts students have a headache when they see code.

I think programmers should develop the habit of writing. Because writing articles will exercise many skills that are very useful for programming.

The core thing that writing articles and writing code have in common is that they both require the ability to think clearly. Top software engineers are often also excellent writers. Their articles are as logical as their code, and their writing is smooth and elegant.

Articles and code have many similarities: both start from a blank page and eventually turn an idea into a complete product and promote it to a specific audience; both writing articles and writing code require you to put together a series of relevant Logical statements are encapsulated into modules, which can be functions or paragraphs of articles; good code, like good articles, needs to be concise and concise, otherwise it will waste CPU resources or human energy.

When a product is almost completed, software engineers will be as anxious as a writer whose work is about to be published. Just like writing articles, software is never completely finished. Engineers need to spend more time optimizing the code, developing new features, or redoing a certain part because they worry that the published work does not show their best side.

Software engineers should write because development collaboration is becoming more and more important these days. Open source projects can get participation from people around the world. Developing and operating a product often requires a large number of engineers (Google Maps has 1,100 full-time employees!). Whether it's GitHub comments, code comments, or technical documentation, clear and accurate writing is required. Good writing skills facilitate communication between people and make projects run better.

You may feel that some projects do not require communication and collaboration, but writing about software usually promotes learning and further discussions. Now, we no longer need to learn from RFC documents or technical manuals, because there are tutorials written by other engineers on the Internet. Additionally, we were able to learn a lot from Hacker News comments, Twitter, and various blogs.

Speaking of blogs, let me say a few words. Good writing takes time. The text we write at the beginning may not be very good. At this time, we need to spend more time, revise it several times, and polish it. If you feel that you are too busy to blog, don’t know what to write, or are worried about your views being publicly recorded, you should take some time to read Steve Yegge’s You Should Blog. Write Blogs) this article. Even if the ideas in it don't convince you, I believe you will gain something after reading it.

Software engineers need to write because they may enjoy the process of writing. Many software engineers expect that the software they develop can "make an impact" and bring changes to people's lives. In fact, by writing articles, you can also "influence" people. For example, a blog post about management can help others motivate their teams, a blog post about teaching programming may arouse a student's interest in learning computer science, and a blog post about career planning may arouse a student's interest in learning computer science. Articles can help graduates find new career directions.

Even if no one reads your article, the process of writing is beneficial and harmless. It helps you clarify your thoughts, clarify your views on a certain issue, and strengthen or weaken your certain views. There’s so much value in condensing messy thoughts into concise words.

In short, writing can help improve the level of software development and make collaboration during the development process easier. Even for a science student, it is a very worthwhile thing to do.

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