Earlier this week I was talking about the difference between 80% and 20% developers, since the topic was brought up again by Jeff Atwood. I was saying that the difference between the 80 and the 20 is simply their want and desire to learn and perfect their craft. So, with that topic fresh on my mind, I was perusing dotnetkicks yesterday and came across this post by Buddy Lindsey. When I saw the title, "Real World Interfaces in C#", and saw that it already had 6 kicks in less than two hours I went ahead and clicked on it to see what it was all about.
I started reading it and Buddy started off talking about how he thought that he finally had a good grasp on how you would want to use interfaces in real life. At first I was a bit confused, I was trying to figure out where the cool new tidbit of information was, or the cool new technology I had never heard of, or the new development technique that I could use. But I kept reading further and I have to admit that I was a little embarrassed with myself because I had some of the "what is hard about this?" thoughts. I click on his "About Me" page to find out that he was a beginnermediate (sic) developer, and it all made sense.
This was one of the 20% developers that I had been talking about in my last post! He was a new guy that was blogging. Most 20% developers that are blogging have years and years of experience and they flood the blogosphere with tons of information about IoC, TDD, functional programming, C# 3.0, Extension Methods, Object-relational mapping, etc… but here is a guy blogging about a topic as basic as interfaces and there is a great response to it! Bravo!
So, my question to you guys is, do we really need to start focusing on blogging more for the beginners? I know personally I would be happy to throw in a post about some topic that I had problems with in my early early days as a developer. I wish that blogging was as popular as it is now when I was first learning, the huge amount of knowledge that comes out of so many people makes learning about new things so easy. But would there have been enough blogs for me to read that would have helped me through the basics? Let me know what you think, and after my functional programming series wraps up I may look at a few issues that I had as a young aspiring developer.
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I think it would be great to see blogging done on more of a beginners level. I think I fall into the category of a 20% developer, and I’m not affraid to admit I need a bit of help. I’ve done a decent bit of research and I must say most of what I read it a bit to advanced for me. So I for one would definately be interested in anything that is more basic.
First, wow i sparked thought that provoked a blog post. Believe me never thought that would happen. That just blows me away. I was slightly tired but am now wide awake.
Second, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. You my new friend "get it" I think, not saying others don’t, but there is a HUGE lack of content for beginners. As one I want to write those blog posts and help the beginners so others don’t hit the same problems I run into and be stuck for months. So again THANK YOU.
Third, I’d love to see beginner content even if it is only 1 post something is better than nothing.
Thank you for blogging I think I found a new blog to subscribe to I love reading blogs 🙂
Hey, glad to hear from you. Yeah, I wish I had more beginner material as well when I was staring out. As soon as I wrap up my functional programming series I will do a few posts on some beginner stuff, and hopefully help start something. I look forward to reading your posts on this topic as well.
Actually I have a post that is "about" beginner content
http://www.buddylindsey.com/Blog/post/2007/10/The-Problem-newb-Software-Development-Tutorials.aspx
It is a how I see the state of things and how to improve them. I am about to do a series on TDD as I have had a few people ask and want to show a few others. Then I plan to backtrack and do a LONG detailed series on OOP.
Sounds good, I look forward to seeing your posts!