Ask HN: Starting blogging when you're not an expert? - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone,
Does it makes sense to you to start a (technical blog) when you know you're not an expert in any field ?
I would like to start a blog where I could put articles about things I'm learning (frameworks, programming languages, concepts...) but I'm afraid it won't be relevant for anyone as I'm don't have any real advanced knowledge in any fields in particular.
Just to be clear : I don't expect/want to make money of it or to become suddenly attractive for recruiters, I just think it could help me learn more, faster and to improve my communications skills. <comment><USER2> Even if you aren't using it to become attractive for recruiters, this will probably happen. I went from rarely (like, extremely) getting callbacks for remote gigs to getting around 30%-40% callbacks. The difference was that I started a blog about writing a web application with modern technologies and included it in my applications. It's a pretty bland blog, but just the fact that I wrote about stuff I'm interested in and has relevancy with the jobs I'm applying for has really paid off.

I definitely feel like an imposter, and I have no readers, but it definitely sharpens my abilities and has really forced me to really understand why I build something a certain way and to evaluate alternatives.

Do it.

<comment><USER3> Do let us know how much more viewership you get after posting this on HN

Or better yet, write a blog post about it

<comment><USER2> Ha, this post provided around 620 unique visitors yesterday. I had 1 visitor (who was probably me) the day before, so that's a nice bump from HN :)

It will be interesting to see how traffic dies/tails off in the coming days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The way to become an expert in anything is to research the thing, do the thing, and reflect on the thing. Blogging is a good way to conduct the first and last part of that process.

If you'll allow me a personal anecdote on the matter:

10 years ago I knew absolutely nothing about "creativity." I worked in an environment where the word was tossed around a lot, but any time I asked what it meant I got conflicting, confusing, and sometimes seemingly backwards responses.

I wanted to better understand the concept I kept hearing about, so I started a blog. I worked hard to read everything I could about creativity, wrote down my thoughts on the subject a few times a week, and connected with people also interested in the subject.

After just a couple of years I started building up a sizable audience. It turned out a lot of people didn't know much about creativity and wanted to follow along my journey. My naivety was theirs, and by sharing the journey of discovery and rumination with the audience, they felt like the journey was just as much their as it was mine.

After six years I had more than 150,000 subscribers to the blog and a book deal with a real publisher. I ended up being invited to write for Adobe's creative publication 99u as well as Inc.com. As of a year or two ago I started being invited to speak on creativity at events around the world. I also ended up building a number of successful products (apps and publications) based on the things I learned over my years blogging.

Everything I learned about creative thinking over the last decade is thanks to that blog and the time I put into it.

The catch is this: it takes time and effort to blog, about anything. At times it can be an arduous task. You can dedicate 10 years to it like I have and still not see anything tangible come as a result. But the biggest benefit to blogging about a specific subject—particularly if you are not yet an expert in that subject—is the same benefit to journaling: it gives you an excuse to think about the thing in ways that you otherwise may not.

<comment><USER5> I was greatly inspired by your post, and I'll be spending the rest of the evening reading your CreativeSomething blog and a little more about your story.

I have a strong desire to follow your path, but instead of Creativity as a focus, it is on finding ways to achieve a simple, less stressful life through automation of repetitive tasks, good habits, organization, etc. Think "Wellness" but with possibly a more tech-focused spin. I get much satisfaction from books like Spark Joy (Marie Kondo), Four Hour Work Week (Timothy Ferriss), and I Will Teach You To Be Rich (Ramit Sethi).

Your post about researching, doing, and reflecting really speaks to me. And I feel like I should jump in... but I'm hesitant because I'm not sure I can easily come up with 20-25 starting topics to research and write about. In your case, Creativity seems like a core keyword that is (easier) to start with. Do you have any recommendations for me?

Again, thanks so much. Your comment may be what changes my life!

<comment><USER4> Many years ago I did a webcast for Moz (formerly SEOmoz) on the topic of how to find things to write about. The webcast is behind a member wall (free to sign up I think) but might be helpful to you[1].

Other tricks I use to come up with things to write about: search Twitter/Quora/Reddit for people specifically asking questions related to what it is you want to write about (e.g. "automatic habit"). Then break each question down into its fundamental components to create a more complete set of topics, asking who, what, where, when, why, and how of each specific question you encounter. This way one question ("What types of habits should be automated") can very easily become several ("Who benefits most from automating habits?", "Where does automation take place?", "When should someone consider automating habits vs. not?", etc.).

1 [https://moz.com/webinars/from-nothing-to-expert-how-to- blog-...](https://moz.com/webinars/from-nothing-to-expert-how-to-blog-like- you-mean-it)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "...I just think it could help me learn more, faster and to improve my communications skills."

That's reason enough to write about what you're learning. Patio11 talks about this a lot - it's important that people learning new things write about what they're learning _as they learn it_ because they'll encounter things that only someone new to that domain will encounter in that particular way.

There's a lot of value in writing about the issue you had setting up your dev environment or getting your "Hello world" app to work because other people will encounter those things too.

And just writing about something will help reinforce what you're learning so you'll learn faster and forget less.

<comment><USER7> Couldn't agree more. I tried this technique several times and simply worked.

When I write about things that I'm learning, it helps me to digest the topic easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sure it makes sense! Just blog about the things you learn. You will probably end up blogging about things that are new to other people.

Best example I know of is Julia Evans [1]. She blogs about the things she learns in areas many people are mot an expert of. I find most of her blogs very interesting.

[1] [https://jvns.ca](https://jvns.ca)

<comment><USER9> I would also recommend Julia's blog as a good example of the "learn this thing along with me" style.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> No matter how much you know, there will almost always be an expert who knows more than you. So it can be intimidating.

However the opposite is true: no matter how little you know, there's guaranteed to be others who know even less about a given topic. So as long as the content is correct, even if it appears "lightweight", it could be of great value to others.

</comment><comment><USER11> Just start a blog and start writing. It doesn't matter if it's presented badly. It doesn't matter what it's about. It doesn't matter if it's crap. Nobody will read it anyway.

(Aside: if the last part concerns you, send it to me. I'll read it! I'll give feedback if you want. Email address in bio. This is open to all, not just the OP.)

After a while you'll have the odd interesting thing to write about, and by then you'll have lots of practice of writing blog posts, and you'll have a nice blog already setup where you can write your interesting thing.

But you'll never get there if you never start.

</comment><comment><USER12> Agree with most of what people have said here. I would just say that for me blogging is a way to document my journey while learning a technical subject. I also found myself referencing a lot of my posts months later to remind myself about how I did something. And lastly, teaching and writing something down is a great way to improve your understanding of a subject. So don't worry and write like nobody is reading!

</comment><comment><USER13> I've been blogging for about 20 years. The first myth to ignore is that you're writing for anyone but yourself. Learn to enjoy the process of telling your story, of capturing your ideas, of explaining what you learn. Few blog posts are read by anyone but the author so you'd better get pleasure and satisfaction and use from blogging. The act of blogging has intrinsic rewards, from improving your writing skills to boosting your memory. With time, readers may come. But start bare bones and share your journey of discovery with your future self.

</comment><comment><USER14> I ran almost popular blogs at times (on now defunct platforms) The pursuit of popularity requires putting a good amount of effort into looking at things from your current and target audience perspective. (It makes a good face palm when the 2 float apart) Non of the effort ever produced the real popularity I was looking for, just a few million page views over their existence. But I kept working at it for some reason...

Today I have a blog with thousands of postings that enjoys 1 to 10 visitors every day. 5000 views is a good year. I post videos, gather links and make citations, write my thoughts along with them [at times] and put some effort into organizing a large number of tags into sub tags and sub sub tags (at least that is how the menu unfolds them)

The entire philosophy is to make a blog for the audience that is me. It is wonderful to structure my thoughts like this. I'm tempted to call it a journal but really it isn't. If I did a journal I would feel obligated to post on it.

The blog is really nothing more than an advanced version of your bookmarks menu but in a highly biased way I'm highly amused by the level of technical sophistication. The entire thing is made of static html. The software parts only know how to create static html and a static backup is made of pages before they are replaced with a new version. Non of the upgrades or security hazards ever had any influence on its existence. Its so rigid there is no technology to write about on the blog.

Or a long story short:

I think you have exactly the right idea. If you write it just for yourself you will enjoy every moment of it.

Depending on who you are and what interests you some of your articles might become popular. Completely ignore it when it happens. Just keep it real. The only things of value coming from the outside world should be 1) a sense of responsibility not to post complete trash (for example a chunk of code without explaining why or what) and 2) interesting comments people leave on your stuff.

Just focus on the area where no one can match your expertise.

I suppose a link is required. Ill add what I jokingly refer to as my greatest work: [http://blog.go-here.nl/8616](http://blog.go-here.nl/8616)

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure why you make that reference in jest. The piece is brilliant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Blogging is a great thing! This is my recommendation/algorithm.

1\. think about distribution - you want a platform like medium that helps you distributing, you want to post on HN (maybe for a few days), you want to tweet it.

2\. if you use medium, focus on reads/week as your primary metric. your first goal is to reach 100 reads/week (it's easier than you think). you need to do step 1. in order to get more reads, which in turn will motivate you to keep writing. (you can check my own medium [1] - it's really bad, I'm not writing since last summer, I'm still getting almost 100 reads/week)

3\. make sure you write as you like to read. be concise, focus on the result, short code snippets / leave the rest on github, don't over explain, etc.

4\. one of the most important things imo. write for SEO. title should be keyword reach, and make sure to check the keywords of your article with any of the online keyword counters, e.g. [2]. It's a must to maintain the longterm reads/week.

5\. as for the topic, don't worry and feel free to be hyper-specific. My most efficient recipe is:

\- monitor yourself while working (or studying, experimenting)

\- there are times where you search something on google/stackoverflow and the solution doesn't exist in 1 single page, but you have to combine 2-3 different results

\- as soon as you have a solution, write it down in a blog post. It shouldn't take more than 1-2h. (examples among my posts: aws policy, kafka offsets, airflow on centos, beam on docker...)

Hope this helps!

[1] [https://medium.com/@0x0ece](https://medium.com/@0x0ece)

[2] [http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword- density/](http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density/)

</comment><comment><USER17> The one big lesson that I learnt while working on something similar to a technical blog [1] was that the process of writing technical articles slowly gives you a fairly good understanding of the field. The other part I would add is maybe write about things that help people with some issues they are having. Good examples of these are frameworks or concepts that people complain about being too confusing or libraries that are poorly documented. Also, writing about technical concepts in a simple way that helped you understand will very likely be useful to a lot of other people.

Good luck!

[1] Serverless Stack ([http://serverless-stack.com](http://serverless- stack.com))

</comment><comment><USER18> If you planning do blogging for yourself (studying purposes) it doesn't matter would it be relevant for others.

It is a good way to teach/repeat/remember something. (for example referensed here [https://hackernoon.com/the-best-way-to-learn-development- ski...](https://hackernoon.com/the-best-way-to-learn-development-skills-while- getting-paid-in-the-process-a31bfb138287))

Maybe you find GitHub's gist usefull [https://gist.github.com/](https://gist.github.com/)

P.S. Sorry for poor english

</comment><comment><USER19> I noticed that people actually like posts the most when you document what you learned, not what you already know. Then what knowledge you (and probably peers) are missing, is very fresh in your memory, and you can bridge the gap easily (without the curse of knowledge).

And like others said, someone else always knows more anyway.

</comment><comment><USER20> Are you just looking for an excuse not to do it? People write about things they don't know much about all the time. Just start. People will read it, or they won't. People will find value in it, or they won't. No matter what, you'll get the practice that's required to improve.

</comment><comment><USER21> Write what you learn. That's a good thing to do. Just get into the habit and it gets easier. After a while you start to spot opinions and techniques that just don't have good reference pages. Write one. Review libraries that you use. If you were thinking of commenting on another article, consider turning the response into your own article. (When doing so, try to write as if the OP is twice as smart as you and your best friend. Helps to avoid utterly unnecessary flame wars.)

Reread everything.

</comment><comment><USER22> You don't need to be an expert, you just need to know more than your audience. What I mean is, if you tailor your blog towards novices then no one will attack you if you don't know everything or even if you've gotten things wrong. However if you tailor your blog towards veterans in the field then you'd better know your stuff. The beauty is that as you learn you can teach more advanced subjects always catering to a group that is where you were a few months ago.

<comment><USER23> > If you tailor your blog towards novices then no one will attack you...

This is just wrong. You _will_ be attacked. You will be called an idiot. That's what the Internet is -- a manic outrage of keyboard kommandos punctuated by pictures of cats.

The default comment on the Internet is outrage. If you write anything, your commenters will either be spam or people calling you an idiot.

The trick is learning to brush it off and completely ignore this hate. Break through that and you can start producing interesting work. Most people don't manage to get to that breakthrough. Good luck.

<comment><USER24> > _This is just wrong. You will be attacked. You will be called an idiot. That > 's what the Internet is -- a manic outrage of keyboard kommandos punctuated > by pictures of cats._

> _The default comment on the Internet is outrage. If you write anything, your > commenters will either be spam or people calling you an idiot._

> _The trick is learning to brush it off and completely ignore this hate. > Break through that and you can start producing interesting work. Most people > don 't manage to get to that breakthrough. Good luck._

A better approach is to try to learn from the critique you receive. Try to not take it personally when someone attacks you, instead see if he/she is right and try to improve yourself.

Also, the _tone_ in which you write your articles will, most of the time, set the tone of the comments you will receive. If you open with something like _XXX is a horrible technology /language_ you will be called names for sure. A better approach is to write in a positive tone, e.g. present a (possibly) better alternative without bashing other languages or libraries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell "I'm afraid it won't be relevant for anyone"

You make it sound like something bad will happen if nobody reads it...

Even if nobody read my own blog, I'd still write it anyway as _I_ find it a useful resource to look back at when I forget stuff.

</comment><comment><USER25> Well, I think you need to consider a few things here:

Firstly, what you consider dumb or 'not knowledgable' might still be far ahead of what a lot of people know about the subject, and hence in their eyes, your perspective would be valuable to have.

Secondly, your experiences are interesting to read about here. I mean, why do you think people read websites dedicated to their owners learning how to do something? Or watch blind Let's Plays of video games?

Because seeing someone else put in the effort and get better at some field or another can be entertaining/interesting in its own right.

Finally, most people are not going to be cruel or judge you for a lack of knowledge here. Most people are generally pretty decent individuals and don't mock those less knowledgeable than themselves based on a few blog posts.

So unless you do something incredibly flame baity (like say, arguing a language you've only just started learning is terribly designed because it's 'too complicated' and claim those who disagre are idiots), most people will be pretty civil about it.

Don't worry so much here. If you think it helps you learn more or improve your communication skills, go for it.

</comment><comment><USER26> Do it

Trying to put what you think you know into words is a powerful way of finding out how well or not you really know the subject. Bonus: You'll find you hear from people in the same position as you which gets you encouragement, makes contacts and keeps your motivation high

Pressing 'publish' on my first blog post was nerve-wracking but really there was nothing to worry about. Do it

</comment><comment><USER27> Yes! People need help at every step. Many times experts aren't good at assessing the problems that beginners face, because they are second nature to them. Set up Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools. You will begin to see the peoples questions that you are answering. Go back and do more research on these topics and pretty quickly, you will be the expert.

</comment><comment><USER28> I went from writing a blog to writing for Wired magazine in the space of three years with no real expertise in my field. The trick was finding an emerging technology with no real "experts," and making myself one.

In my case it was 3-D printing. I started writing in 2008 when the technology was really just for industrial designers and mechanical engineers. I was a user, but had no real knowledge about the industry. So I started reading annual reports from the big manufacturers, reading research papers from labs that were doing interesting work, and reaching out to companies that were using the printers in interesting ways.

Over time I found an audience. RepRap, the homebrew printer, was the hot fad at the time. Then came MakerBot, the space exploded, and all of a sudden I had some expertise was in demand. It's certainly not a short path to success, but I can't really see a downside to blogging for most people.

<comment><USER29> Genuine question, you say that "all of a sudden I had some expertise (which) was in demand". Have you been able to monetise on your expertise?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Regardless of your current, perceived skill level, you're already an expert to someone else.

Start writing, be awesome, teach others.

</comment><comment><USER31> Yeah I think it is an easy trap to fall into -- to try to be the "expert".

It's harder to just say what you know, and ask questions about what you don't know. And change your mind on the blog.

But that's what makes for a better blog. People want to see your opinions change over time as you learn things. They don't want to necessarily read advice from an "expert", because even if you are an expert, in 3 years the "best practice" may change.

Honestly, the most annoying blog posts are those about "best practices". I skip over those. I want to read people's honest experiences -- learning something or building something -- and then I'll form my own opinion about the best practice.

</comment><comment><USER32> Blogging about stuff you are learning sounds like a great idea. Don't write for anyone else but initially write for yourself. If you write content that is useful for yourself eventually others will find it useful too.

The thing that somehow keeps me from blogging more is that I want to learn/blog about so many completely different topics that feel totally unrelated. Like programming native guis, meditation, cycling, software project management, devops, monitoring,Buddhism,...

So many topics that I feel don't belong on just one blog. I don't know if I should start multiple blogs or use categories on just one site or something else.

<comment><USER33> I think categories is a great idea.

You can even make a great (and simple) homepage with topic selection :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> It sounds like you already know the answer:

> I just think it could help me learn more, faster and to improve my > communications skills.

Two reasons to blog while you're learning something:

1\. When one person teaches, two people learn.

2\. Writing things down helps sharpen your own understanding of that topic.

3\. (Bonus) You may think nobody would find it useful because there are already so many articles out there about X or Y, but just think about how many times you've been helped by a blog post or tip from some little no-name blog. You may not think of yourself as an expert but there are certainly people out there who know even less than you, who may find your posts helpful.

<comment><USER35> Your points, at least in my experience, are spot on. I would include one additional bonus: i find i "hm" and "um" less, and generally communicate clearer since writing became a regular practice of mine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Definitely. I was in exactly the same position, and just started blogging about stuff as I built it.

'Experts' often don't explain the simple stuff as they assume everyone knows it already. Often, reading about someone's experience as they were first learning a technology is far more useful than trying to learn from an 'expert'.

An you'll be suprised about being 'attractive for recruiters.' I wrote a tiny post about setting up a MongoDB and Flask 'Hello World' app. I definitely wasn't an expert, and the post had flaws, but it still led to a job and a book deal :)

<comment><USER37> How does a single post lead to a book deal?

<comment><USER36> PacktPub, and a number of other 'tail end' publishers have editors who scour the web looking for posts related to books they want to publish. They wanted "Flask by Example" so asked me if I'd be interested in writing it after finding my blog post on Flask.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Do it.

I recently started writing gists ([https://gist.github.com/CarlMungazi](https://gist.github.com/CarlMungazi)) about the stuff I'm learning whilst reading through the source code of a framework I use at work.

I'm not expecting to understand everything and I will probably get some things wrong (reading source code is difficult) but in the short time I've been doing this I've already learnt a lot.

</comment><comment><USER39> I think so. My blog is a mix of everything (personal, technical, random). It is a really good way to learn to be a better communicator. Especially when you have trouble keeping thoughts in order.

It also takes time to get better at writing in general so (IMO) the sooner you start the better.

I never consider myself an expert (in anything), even though I think I am competent and get paid to work so clearly my skills are of use.

</comment><comment><USER40> Blog everything that costs you more than x minutes to figure out, especially when you didn't find a relevant StackOverflow post or similar.

</comment><comment><USER41> Writing will make you smarter, and writing in public will have you feeling more responsible for your words and the actions that led to them.

You don't have to be an expert unless you're claiming to be. Just start writing.

You'll quickly find out if you have a knack for it. Just as the sound of your voice or your appearance can resonate with an audience, so can the rhythm and the sentiment of your words.

Of course, most people are not good writers. Writing is extremely hard.

But what most of us have in common is they just can't stop writing. Once you get into it, it's addictive.

> learn more, faster and to improve my communications skills.

And probably for the above reasons.

Words allow us to see our thoughts objectively. And for others to do the same.

So really, it doesn't matter if you're an expert, or even who you are. It doesn't even matter if you're that good at it. What matters is if you are a writer. And there is only one way to find out.

</comment><comment><USER42> My team and I operate a SaaS that helps bloggers that have similar issues.

The key is to just start writing. There is no "wrong" blog format. You can write 50 word blog poetry, or you can write 5000 word essays. It does not matter. It just needs to be GOOD content.

In the beginning (unless you are already famous), you will likely not have much audience, so just knowing that makes it a lot easier to not worry about all the little things like grammar, execution, etc. Who cares if there isn't too many people judging at the time. And that's a perfect atmosphere to "git gud!"

As you blog over a few months, you will start becoming better at many things, writing (grammar and spelling), networking, communicating, etc.

The most important part is to just START. Once you are going, most of it will come naturally. When you are ready to build an audience, the REAL HARD work/hustle begins.

</comment><comment><USER43> I a word...YES! he fact is, as human beings in general and individually as small business owners, we are all unique in one shape or form or another. Our life experiences are all different, and they are what differentiates us from our peers and often the competition. The fact is we all have some expertise or life experience that gives us wisdom from which others can benefit. In turn, we can use the opportunity to gain the wisdom of others by learning from their experience, knowledge, and understanding. I address this very topic in my first business blog post. [https://localbizguru.com/blog/small-business- blogging-adds-v...](https://localbizguru.com/blog/small-business-blogging- adds-value/)

</comment><comment><USER44> Think of it as a tech diary that you don't mind other people reading. A little problem that you solve might turn out to be a little problem several other people have, and Google will help them find your solution to their problem, making their lives a bit better, too.

</comment><comment><USER45> 100% - writing isn't about having readers from day one. It's about learning how to express yourself. I've been blogging for 6 years now. When I started I had no idea what I wanted to talk about, so I just used it to flush out thoughts I had.

You will find an audience as you find your voice. What you hae to say will resonate as you get better at writing (±12 months of consistent writing is a good rule of thumb to start building a readership).

Forget money. Forget "professional network" even. Just focus on having conversations with people who are passionate about things you're passionate about. If you're lucky, you'll interview a hero of yours.

</comment><comment><USER46> I'd say just do it! It'll help you and you'll become an expert. I've been trying to post daily for two years without success. 6 days ago I restarted again ([https://service.goodcharacters.com/daily/](https://service.goodcharacters.com/daily/)) and so far so good. I hope you'll do it right away and don't worry about what people think. I read so many good comments here so there's nothing for me to add. Just like taking pictures helps me see/observe; writing helps me focus and think better. I hope you do it.

</comment><comment><USER47> The point isn't that you're an expert. That can be useful. But the point is that you're blogging your discovery process. The how and why of what you've learned. Tech blogs would be fairly dry if they were only a statement of knowledge (even expertise) that didn't also include some amount of discovery process. If you really look, you'll see that _most_ technical blogs are of this type, where someone describes something they've learned, often with a story. These are certainly the most relatable posts. Just go for it!

</comment><comment><USER48> The best teachers are often not the top experts and vice versa. I am making money teaching go lessons as an average amateur. Why does this work? Because there are very few teachers whose specialty is to get novices and beginners to average amateur level fast. Sign up here: patreon.com/jonbarker . What do I get out of this? Reusable downloadable/paid content and more exposure. I also get to think about how to teach anything (meta-teaching), which is a generally valuable skill.

<comment><USER29> Could you expand on how do you get your students that pay for your lessons? I'm asking this as someone who is a CS teacher in a local university but would like to earn something on the side..

<comment><USER48> I get paying students by providing free lessons. If they like the result then I direct them to my patreon page where they can sign up if they like. I am looking to learn CS from a personal CS coach so please email email@example.com. Let's schedule some time to go over mutual strategies at the very least.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> You definitely should go for it. Writing helps a lot in organizing your knowledge. I have a technical blog where I publish my small discoveries or results of some longer research. Each time I write a post some interesting questions will pop up in my head (even when I feel I know the matter very well). Additionally, I am really happy when I can give someone a link to my post that answers his/her question. So good luck and I hope we will see your blog post one day on HN :)

</comment><comment><USER50> Certainly.

There may be 100s, 1000s, even more, or even just 10 people that are in your shoes. But they're in your shoes.

Writing for others is a great exercise in testing yourself. Your knowledge, understanding, your motivation. If you get comments or feedback they're not something to be afraid of, but something to challenge yourself on.

You can develop a network. Be humble in intent, but despite being new, not overly so. You're part of information dissemination and generating new ideas for others.

</comment><comment><USER51> It's completely fine (and will likely help make you better in the fields you blog about and better at communication in general, which is gold.) Of course you wouldn't want to misstate your experience or qualifications, but it doesn't sound like you were contemplatin that anyway.

And if you are able to communicate what you are doing and why, it will be a help to people who are in roughly the same position as you with an interest in the same thing, which is great.

</comment><comment><USER52> I think almost everyone should have a blog and write about _whatever_ they feel comes to mind/on any topic they want. Even if they're not a good writer, it's another great skill to learn! I find writing to be incredibly therapeutic.

As long as the expectations are reasonably set that it will 99.9% likely never develop an audience or make any money, and is instead a creative outlet and a way to develop your own skills, you'll enjoy it way more.

</comment><comment><USER53> I think it is definitely worth it. I blogged daily when teaching myself JavaScript, being open with the fact that I knew nothing and including things I'd learned that day and code snippets. It helped recall to get my thoughts and approaches down in writing, but also resulted in people chiming in with helpful comments on how I could improve. Eventually as my knowledge grew my posts actually ended up being helpful for others, too.

</comment><comment><USER54> I started WristWatchReview.com when I wanted to learn about watches. I was dumb for a long time and still am but I know a little bit more now. Go for it.

</comment><comment><USER55> Your last paragraph tells me you're in the right mindset already. Surrender yourself to the process rather than the outcome.

Fire up that notepad and start typing.

</comment><comment><USER56> There is the saying that the best way to learn is by teaching others and I have found this to be completely true with my own blogging. Teaching topics that you recently learned helps to solidify your understanding of the information because it requires additional research and considerations that would have never been made if you were satisfied with what you had learned and decided to move on.

</comment><comment><USER57> Do it!!! When you're feeling better about your writing, you can archive old content or start a new blog. Write because you want to and to share you learnings. Write about the process of learning, beyond the end result. Take notes as you figure things out so you can share the missteps along the way. I think many would find that useful. I did with a glusterfs post I read recently.

</comment><comment><USER58> > Does it makes sense to you to start a (technical blog) when you know you're > not an expert in any field ?

I believe so yes. When I am learning something new myself, it is always great to follow along with someone else that learned it. There is no reason to leave out your mistakes or lessons learned. Plus you can come back and correct yourself but share it with others.

</comment><comment><USER59> "I just think it could help me learn more, faster and to improve my communications skills."

Use obscurity to your advantage. Your blog is not known (yet), but if you show up every day/week and write something you're learning, eventually you'll become the expert and goto source. This is the way I think about my personal blog.

</comment><comment><USER60> > Does it makes sense to you to start a (technical blog) when you know you're > not an expert in any field?

Yes.

Simply sharing what you are learning, how you are learning, or resources you are using to learn is useful. And frankly, it also makes you an expert in your process for learning. No one else is better equipped to share that story than you are.

</comment><comment><USER61> It's a great idea! Every act of doing, especially new things can only lead to new skills being developed. It's free, why not! There can only be benefits, documenting the journey of learning. Search for "Gary Vaynerchuk Document VS Create", a nice piece (blog, also a video) about the benefits of it.

</comment><comment><USER62> Yes, but prepare yourself. Our community as a whole doesn't reward anything that doesn't fit with the current trends.

If you're seen deviating from the social norms, you will get push back, and it's seldom kind or constructive.

For example, I wrote this some time ago: [http://dave.fayr.am/posts/2011-10-4-rubyists-already-use- mon...](http://dave.fayr.am/posts/2011-10-4-rubyists-already-use-monadic- patterns.html)

I received a lot of hate for this post, both on this site and in other ruby circles.

When I wrote this post: [http://dave.fayr.am/posts/2007-06-07-Multicore-And- Ruby.html](http://dave.fayr.am/posts/2007-06-07-Multicore-And-Ruby.html) I was banned from multiple ruby communities and called "the joe lieberman of ruby" by a prominent rubyist.

I don't mean to pick on the ruby community here specifically, these are just the oldest so it's least likely to re-open an old argument.

I could point to other examples. I'm considering going back to blogging myself, but my experience is that negative feedback overwhelms positive feedback 3:1.

<comment><USER11> Getting hate isn't bad. At least people care.

Getting ignored is worse. When you've spent hours of your time writing something up that you think is super interesting, and people can't even be bothered to read it and send you some snarky abuse. That's the worst.

<comment><USER62> No. I'm sorry, but to me this seems like such a childlike mentality: "Any attention is good attention."

Being ignored is preferable to being ostracized by the community at large. Or so I thought, anyways. Now I realize that my mistake was publishing in the first place. There's only negative outcomes, in general. You'll meet a few good people along the way, and you have to decide if that is worth the trouble or not, it's a scale of personal experience.

<comment><USER63> But this is not about attention by itself; It's about feedback.

At least you learned that your opinions were considered controversial. You made someone move out of their comfort zone and reach out to you, if only to send hatemail. You have impact on other people. That's something.

But those who are writing posts but get no response whatsoever, are stumbling in the dark. Is the topic boring? Is the post not detailed enough? Too long? Too pompous? Is there a spelling error half-way through, so horrible, that no one manages to read the article to the end? Those people will never know.

Of course, you can hone your writing skills by writing for yourself, but without critique from others, it can only get you so far.

<comment><USER62> You can call this success. I don't. Success is writing great code or educating people. Not provoking bullshit responses.

So like, i wrote an article about learning to code. It was wrong. I was using outdated research.

But none of my critique of it was about that. I had to discover that later. My crituque was that it was stupid, or unfair, or anti-blue-collar, or whatever. I got 0 value, 0 education, 0 fun, and only regret out o the experience. And it was strictly my diligence on the subject that lead to a correction.

What exactly did I get other than harassment for this process? Maybe you feel differently, but honestly? I don't care how folks feel. Either we have a constructive dialogue, or we don't. I don't want non-constructive dialogues. I can find no consolation in the later kind.

You might look at my content history on HN and say, "But you argue with people a lot." I do, because I feel obligated to do so. I do not like it or enjoy it. It is something I have promised to do; not something I want to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Totally.

Most people aren't experts, so if you write about beginner stuff you will find more people who like your content. If you write for experts only the few experts will know what to make of it.

I started blogging this year, writing one post every week and the most basic stuff nicely explained got the most views.

<comment><USER63> Would you mind posting the url here?

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> A friend of mine recently made a cogent observation... he said that the best teachers are those filled with Imposter Syndrome, who doubt their own authority on a subject. Real experts have a much more difficult time communicating.

</comment><comment><USER66> Thats the precise reason that I've started my blog, [https://andrestc.com](https://andrestc.com). I'm writing about things I'm learning while studying several topics.

</comment><comment><USER67> As long as you put disclaimers like "This part I'm not completely proficient but I made it work." whenever appropriate, you should definitely do it. You don't need to be an expert to blog, but only humble.

</comment><comment><USER68> "I just think it could help me learn more, faster and to improve my communications skills." This is a great reason to start a blog IMO, it's what I did. I believe it helped me get my current job.

</comment><comment><USER69> personal story : I'm not a data scientist, but I enjoy reading about and experimenting with relevant topics. Some time ago I was blogging about this(for example [0]) and it was very interesting and valuable experience, I never regretted about this. If you have time and desire for blogging don't miss this opportunity!!

[0] [https://medium.com/@sAbakumoff/angular-vs-react-text- analysi...](https://medium.com/@sAbakumoff/angular-vs-react-text-analysis-of- commit-messages-1cda199f3bdb)

</comment><comment><USER70> Someone who has just learned something is in the best position to teach that thing to others.

If you are an an expert in a topic it can be hard to understand which aspects of that thing are non-obvious to beginners.

</comment><comment><USER71> Think of it this way:

No one should really proclaim to be an expert in anything. That title is reserved for the opinion of others. All anyone can claim is that they are passionate about a topic – which you are.

</comment><comment><USER72> I blog instead of keeping a notebook and recommend it.

I blog for myself - and if its useful to others then thats great.

That said I've got this aim to get 100 readers per day - getting close as around 80-90 at the moment

</comment><comment><USER73> I blog because I am not an expert.

Many times, I post about something, someone smarter than me mentions a better way to do what I just posted.

That right there is the reason I blog. I end up learning more by doing it monthly.

</comment><comment><USER74> >but I'm afraid it won't be relevant for anyone

Think of it as a journal instead of a blog then. If you keep up the posts, you'll be surprised that it will become relevant to others.

</comment><comment><USER75> Totally, even if you're not an expert, you can write your own experience on some topics. And maybe what difficulties you had or would you handle something to make it easier.

</comment><comment><USER76> Of course do it! - pretty much I'm doing it with couple restarts since 2011: [http://lukaszkups.net](http://lukaszkups.net) ;)

</comment><comment><USER77> My 2 cents - go for it. Very little downside. Just pick where you write (Wordpress vs Medium) based on how much ownership you want on brand of the blog, versus readership.

</comment><comment><USER78> "How I learnt X" seems like a reasonable topic. And you'll definitely be open to comment from people who find your blog and know more about the subject.

</comment><comment><USER79> Why not? Most people giving presentations at non-academic conferences are complete neophytes anymore. And people often _pay_ for that priviledge...

</comment><comment><USER80> This pretty much describes me and my blog. [https://johnrockefeller.net](https://johnrockefeller.net)

</comment><comment><USER81> If you are working on a blog or trying to write daily as a habit, please send me an email (ijinal at gmail dot com)since I am doing a User study.

</comment><comment><USER82> Blogging can be incredibly helpful (even if no one reads it) because it forces you to articulate your thoughts clearly + become a better writer + thinker.

Do it.

</comment><comment><USER83> Yes absolutely you will learn about yourself and the tech.

</comment><comment><USER84> Yes. Writing is one way to become an expert.

</comment><comment><USER85> It absolutely makes sense! Over 10 years ago I started Productivity501 writing on various things I was learning about personal productivity. It has been extremely beneficial as a writing exercise, but it has also given me a much bigger presence on the web. A government agency was doing a background check on me for some contracting work. After they started, the person in charge of contracting called me up and asked how in the world I had time to do everything I had done online. They had done some searches and started finding hundreds of articles I had written over the years, interviews on other websites, people talking about articles I had written, etc. It made a huge positive difference in the way they perceived me.

Regarding not being an expert in some technical field: If you are putting any time at all into learning something, there is always going to be someone coming after you that knows less than you do. Explaining how you fixed a problem or set something up is going to be valuable even if it is very simple and even if you aren't an expert. Do a Google search for "connecting Visual VM to Tomcat 7" for an example of a post that I wrote simply to remind myself how to use Visual VM with tomcat. I am in no way an expert on Visual VM, but many people have found it helpful.

I have a few posts where I've written about a particular problem, forgot about it, and later Google led me back to my own post when I was looking up how to solve that same error again. So even just posting an error message along with a discussion of the details of how you fixed it can be extremely valuable. Think how often you've found an answer because someone else took the time to do the same thing. You probably didn't care if they were considered an "expert" or not.

One last example. Take a look at this article I wrote as an introduction to state machines:

[http://blog.markshead.com/869/state-machines-computer- scienc...](http://blog.markshead.com/869/state-machines-computer-science/)

I wrote that post to see if I understood the topic well enough to articulate it well. I'm pretty happy with its current state, but, despite all the time I put into it originally, the real work came when it got a bunch of comments from HN readers. If you scroll down to the comments you'll see people pointed out all kinds of problems that I fixed or clarified based on feedback I received. I may not be an expert, but taking the time to write the article, correct it when people pointed out an error, explain when someone thought they found an error that wasn't, and answer questions has given me a much greater amount of expertise than I had before and I'm not sure I could have gotten it any other way.

All that to say, go for it! Don't let your perceived lack of expertise hold you back. You'll find it to be an extremely valuable way to grow.

</comment><comment><USER86> Do it dude!

</comment><comment><USER87> Yes, do it. 100 times yes. While you write blog posts to recap your experiences, and you do it carefully, you will often find details and answers that you didn't find before and thus deepen your understanding. Kind of like taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. So even if nobody reads your blog posts (and they will be read by _someone_ ), it's worth it.

</comment><comment><USER88> Most bloggers are not experts. Most experts are not bloggers. I wouldn't sweat it. If you have something to say, say it.

</comment><comment><USER89> You should do it just because writing things helps you to see what you know with clarity.

</comment><comment><USER90> Blog using jupyter so others can analyze your work.</comment>


Introducing Home - <AUTHOR> http://newsroom.fb.com/News/597/Introducing-Home <comment><AUTHOR> I think facebook are onto something saying that the home screen is the heart of the phone and that it currently presents the information the wrong way round.

The home screen at the moment is very similar to how the first facebook app worked. It presented you with a grid of icons to choose from before you could interact with content. The switch to news feed first worked well there and I don't see why the same logic shouldn't work with the entire phone just as well.

Though seeing as facebook is only a small subset of my sources of interesting information, I could see this bringing to the table competing home screen 'apps' that incorporate more from your world than just the apps that facebook own.

<comment><USER2> I believe windows phone does this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a brilliant way to seize underutilized screen space on your smartphone. Definitely the kind of innovation that makes you think "why didn't that occur to me?" Though I bet a lot of us that are iphone users take for granted that Apple controls the home screen.

I'm already thinking about switching to Android after years of being an iphone user, not for this app specifically but for what its functionality tells me about the Android OS.

</comment><comment> B-Con Am I the only one who doesn't mind going to get the content I want? I enjoy having it easily available, but I don't get the obsession with making it effortlessly consumable. Not only is my friend's social network activity low on my list of priorities, but I don't need it spoonfed to me when I do want it.

</comment><comment><USER4> This potentially also marks way for facebook to further become the centre point for how you get connect - alongside their hidden ability to be the world's biggest phone operator (free voice calls form facebook messenger from smartphones!)

</comment><comment><USER5> (That's a neat idea... their news page images link to a page with a higher res version and the usage restrictions and alternate art sizes.)</comment>


Terrible Ideas in Git - <AUTHOR> https://www.linux.com/news/event/linuxcon-europe/2016/terrible-ideas-git-0 <comment><USER2> OK. I'll bite - what is exactly the problem when someone rebases master and force-pushes it? As far as I understand all other people have to do is: git fetch; git rebase -i origin/master and remove everything that shouldn't be there. Does not seem like a that big of a deal.</comment>


Kenya will start teaching Chinese to elementary school students from 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/africa/1517681/kenya-to-teach-mandarin-chinese-in-primary-classrooms/ <comment><USER2> From the article: _" Mandarin is set to be taught alongside local languages besides other foreign ones including French and Arabic."_

They could just as easily have titled the article:

 _" Kenya will start teaching French to elementary school students from 2020."_

But of course that would have triggered fewer people leading to fewer readers (probably wouldn't have made it to HN either).

I'm quite wary about "Chinese neocolonialism" myself, but as a Kenyan Citizen who's seen the massive QOL improvement in the country over the last few years, I really don't see the issue with teaching the worlds most widely spoken language in schools.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for being the voice of reason by pointing out the obvious that others seem to miss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I started learning Mandarin a few months ago. My kid goes to a Saturday school so I figured I might as as well join when they made an adults class.

Thus far it's been reasonable. I do have some advantages, having parents who speak Cantonese. In fact a lot of the words seem similar. The grammar might be different, but we're not flying through the course since it's once a week.

I'd say thus far it's like when I went to learn German, being a native speaker of Danish. With just a very few lessons, knowing the neighbouring language opens up the new language very fast. I could pick up a German newspaper and read it within a few weeks, it having been gibberish to me previously. Even quite complex political stuff was understandable suddenly.

With Mandarin my expectations are lower. The characters are still hard to remember, and tbh I haven't spent the time trying to memorize them. What's cool is I've learned how to use a pinyin keyboard, which allows me to convert the sounds written in Latin script to Chinese characters. Much like one might write emojis. But I'm able to write stuff to Chinese friends and they can read it.

The great thing is translation services are pretty good now. You can just paste the pinyin into google translate, and something sensible seems to come out. Part of this is of course I have closer priors being a Cantonese speaker.

And finally I'm now on WeChat, which turns out to be one of the biggest apps in the world. Interesting to see how design is done in other parts of the world. The teacher has us write answers to questions in WeChat, and she has us pronounce stuff so she can critique it.

<comment><USER5> I started much this same way. I started at a local college taking just Mandarin I. I bought a bunch of books. I spent 2 months in China too. This was really worth it.

I do practice for an hour each day writing in Chinese. I also keep my day planner in Chinese and make notes in Chinese. I mean physically writing characters out.

WeChat is great.

Pleco is a great dictionary. I have it open all day long.

Google Translate is good. WeChat Translate and Google Translate differ on translations quite a bit. Bonus that translate.google.com is available while inside China.

Take a look at the "Chineasy" books. I found them great for gaining history of characters and therefore an understanding of why the characters are the way they are. Here is an example: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5FNvW19GbA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5FNvW19GbA)

There is a good TED Talk - 3,500 characters vs 26 letters: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LvhjgW9zh0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LvhjgW9zh0)

I actually was going to start a Discourse forum for learning Chinese. I have it ready to do basically just need to get a domain name.

Edit: Added YT link.

<comment><USER6> Did you have any prior background? I only ask because many commenters either were familiar with Cantonese or have Chinese heritage. I'm primarily familiar with Romance languages + German (i.e., never learned a new alphabet, no Arabic/Russian) and I'm curious about the impression of someone after diving in.

<comment><USER7> It really depends on the person, for me learning pronunciation is easy, I have the talent to be able imitate to other people's speech pretty accurately. On the other hand, I have a terrible handicap with learning grammar. It just feels like rote memorization of meaningless rules and it never sticks.

So for me personally Mandarin was like a dream come true because there's barely any grammar at all _. I just have to speak the words in the correct order "you want with me eat food?" "you eat finished?" "tomorrow we together go climb mountain?".

_relatively speaking. There's grammar of course and it's interesting and subtle, but it's much less than romance languages and there are basically no exceptions. The closest thing to the exception I can think of is the "ill- thought out sentence" (没想好的句子), which is an exception to word order where you forget to say the beginning of the sentence and instead put it at the end: "go see movie? ...you tomorrow"

<comment><USER8> I think that's a common misconception, as you've already alluded to - there is grammar, and it's easy to speak incorrectly if you don't study. There's just no inflection (do/does/did/done, der Mann/des Mannes/dem Manne/den Mann, hablas/hablaste/hablabas/hablaras/etc.)

<comment><USER7> Yes that's more accurate, it's really just the lack of inflection, which despite being a massive thing by itself, is by no means the entirety of grammar. I love Chinese grammar: the particles, the verb aspect markers, the resultative complements, they all feel really logical to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> China is investing a lot in Africa, good video on the topic, "How Africa is Becoming China's China": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQV_DKQkT8o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQV_DKQkT8o)

</comment><comment><USER10> I took an online class at Wharton Business School and the teacher said that Africa would be an economic power in twenty years. Teaching Mandarin in school is probably a good idea.

When my wife and I were in Kenya we went to two elementary schools and the kids in class seemed very happy to be there. Even at a young age someone probably informed them that education is the ticket to a better life.

<comment><USER11> what are the changes that are taking place that will allow Africa to be an economic power in twenty years?

<comment><USER12> "Africa" isn't one place, but rather a collection of dozens of countries. But in general, most of them are on the aggressive-growth path that leads from agrarian/illiterate poverty to urban/literate middle class over the course of 2-3 generations, just like Asian and European countries before them. Many African nations are growing economically at rates north of 5% annually, far faster than any "first world" nation.

Colonialism has been replaced by international trade, which expects nations to hold up their end of business. That means businesses want - need - workers who can read and do arithmetic, who are reasonably healthy, have access to transportation and personal communication (phones, internet). They need roads, clean water, good airports, stable local currencies, effective legal systems, all sorts of things that the old colonial system did not require. Provide schools, roads, vaccinations, clean water, and good currency, and it affects everyone. Things get much better very quickly.

This happened in America, too. Hell, both my grandfathers were illiterate. One didn't even have running water or electricity on his farm, when I was a small child and he was an old man. It wasn't weird then.

<comment><USER13> Ireland grew 4.1% in 2018. 26 out of 54 African countries had higher growth in 2017. Africa had an average growth of 4.34%, but Libia had 55% growth. Without Libia, average growth was 3,38%.

This says little about the overall state, one should examine more years, also I am comparing 2018 to 2017 but I am too lazy.

Bearish on Africa

<comment><USER12> I'm looking at ten year averages from Global Finance magazine. Over ten years, Ireland is at 3.3%, and even that makes it an outlier among western nations (it's the highest ranked European country). By comparison, the US is at 1.4%, and most of Europe is around 1%.

Libya is at -9.4% over the decade, largely due to the civil war there. Much of Africa is over 5% average for the decade (Kenya is 5%). Except for a few failed states like Libya and South Sudan, almost every country in Africa is above 2.5% growth over the past decade.

I'm _really_ bullish on Africa. The numbers support it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Looking at the curriculum linked, it seems like Mandarin is being offered as an elective while English is a mandatory subject.

<comment><USER15> Kenyan here. English has always been mandatory in Kenya, seeing that it's a former British colony, just like India

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Naturally, people will gravitate to where they believe opportunity lies. It's a great opportunity now in order to foster commerce and trade with China which has focused on East Africa.

Yet, this is only part of the requirements. Connections and insidership are also important. Just like learning Japanese in the 70s and 80s didn't mean you automatically qualified for a job, if you had connections and were an insider, knowing Japanese helped quite a bit. It'll likely be the same here.

</comment><comment><USER17> Oddly a lot of positivity in this thread. Anecdotally, the kenyans I know are really not pleased with the Chinese invasion of their culture and food stocks. There is fear of food fraud (fillers and ingredients sold as other things) for example from chinese imports.

<comment><USER18> Kenyans are poisoning other Kenyans by cooking things in PCB-laden oil. You know, a chemical that causes places to be labeled Superfund sites in the US.

[https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/12/thieves-f...](https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/12/thieves- fry-kenya-power-grid-fast-food-2014122884728785480.html)

<comment><USER19> I'm surprised they haven't started adding bitterant to the oil, is there a reason that wouldn't work in this case?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Recommended reading:

[http://pinyin.info/readings/defrancis/chinese_writing_reform...](http://pinyin.info/readings/defrancis/chinese_writing_reform.html)

Summary: emperical evidence shows that students who were taught Pinyin (romanized, phonetic Chinese writing) were far better off than students who learned with Hanzi characters (the pictograms you're familiar with). Despite this, Chinese written language reform is unlikely to happen due to political pressures from the elites, whose family's positions are secured by the higher barrier to entry to becoming an intellectual. It takes more work to learn Chinese than almost any other language because they _want it to_.

For this reason, even setting aside the other moral quandries presented by China, I'm against teaching Mandarin in schools. Though, as an optional class for high-school-level children, it makes more sense.

Edit: probably worth clarifying that I study Hanzi characters and I am fluent in Japanese.

<comment><USER21> The advantage of pictograms is you can infer meaning from component radicals when looking at more complicated pictograms. Pinyin is useful but limited, e.g. there is a number of different pictograms that are all pronouced 'shi4' so simply by looking at pinyin you won't be able to differentiate without additional context that might not be available in written scenario.

<comment><USER5> >'shi4'

but isn't that when you use context around the word to know what the meaning is? The same happens in English...you don't always know without context.

学习中文很有趣!

Xuéxí zhōngwén hěn yǒuqù!

hanzi or pinyin reading either way I know what this is intended to say.

<comment><USER22> That's just spoken language. There are many words that are "literary", which means they are used primarily in writing and not spoken language. Without hanzi it would be very difficult to understand what is written.

<comment><USER5> Yup this can be true.

If you read something like duo(3) it could be a measure word for flowers (朵) or maybe mean "to hide or avoid" (躲)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The ability to communicate in another language can really only be a positive development for any individual group.

<comment><USER24> How are you judging positivity?

Classroom time should be spent on the most important things. Learning for the sake of learning is meaningless. There is no value in knowing how many dots are on the ceiling. The classroom time could been spent learning something more meaningful. For example, cursive writing should not be taught.

I would suggest only praising skills that help a child economically or make life fulfilling. I do not consider learning different ways to say a word as fulfilling as history, art, or philosophy.

<comment><USER25> Reductio ad absurdum. Could just as easily say any of the following:

I do not consider learning how to smear grease on a canvas could be as fulfilling as <whatever>.

I do not consider memorizing dates and people's names as fulfilling as <whatever>.

I do not consider ruminating on some made up dilemmas to be as fulfilling as <whatever>.

Second language learning is a hell of a lot more than learning a foreign vocabulary.

People like different things (to say absolutely nothing of the other half of how you justify investing in learning -- the economic value of having mastered a second language). Even if it were possible that your individual tastes were some kind of universal truth and we're all just unenlightened -- what have you done to enlighten us here -- the value of the things you like must be self evident? Is everyone just an NPC?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Embrace the change and opportunity!

In germany we tried to start teaching Turkish at school. Boy was that a shit show of racism...

<comment><USER27> Teaching German kids Turkish feels like it has a political motive more than anything else. I can see Kenyans gaining opportunities of improving their lives by learning Chinese. What do Germans have to earn from learning Turkish? Are you sure the backlash was racism and not just a lot of "what a terrible waste of time and public money"?

<comment><USER26> Turkish is the most spoken language at homes with migration background.

Not even speaking about the percentage of people from foreign countries speaking or understanding Turkish as a second language.

Beside English and German, Turkish is the most understood and spoken language in germany.

Why not teach it in schools? you can pick languages, Latin, France, so why not Turkish? (beside English)

<comment><USER27> If all those families moved to Germany because there was no future in Turkey, it's highly unlikely that learning Turkish will do any good for them. I think the objective of a public education has to be to improve the lives of people, if they want to learn Turkish or Klingon they should pay for it themselves.

Also I can imagine that adding a new language choice is very expensive.

<comment><USER28> > If all those families moved to Germany because there was no future in > Turkey, it's highly unlikely that learning Turkish will do any good for them

The classes are for people who only speak German. People emigrating from Turkey likely speak Turkish.

It's about understanding other cultures, and the ones most relevent. Just like how in England, along with learning about christianity, we learnt about Islam.

It's like in the US, Spanish is the most popular second language taught in schools, since you're very close to large numbers of spanish speakers, and have a high number of spanish-speaking migrants. In the UK, amongst a load of other reasons, until very recently French was the most poopular second language in schools, since France is pretty close to us.

<comment><USER27> Germans don't have to learn about Turks. Turks have to learn about Germans and blend in. If they can't, that's a very serious failure.

<comment><USER28> You seemed to have ignored several of my points, which leads me to believe that you're not debatting in good faith.

> Germans don't have to learn about Turks

Why not? If they reside in the same country, mutual culteral understanding can be key for integration.

> Turks have to learn about Germans and blend in

We can have both, Germans learn a bit of Turkish, Turks learn German, where's the problem?

> If they can't, that's a very serious failure.

Where above is it indicated that Turks are failing to learn German?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is a double edged sword. China is increasing it's influence in Africa through it's debt and road .. ahem, I mean, belt and road.. initiative and is arguably the most influential great power in Africa.

It's doubtful, even in the long term that Mandarin will challenge English and French with respect to influence in Africa, but language is one of the strongest signifiers of cultural influence, and it's obvious that China is looking to tighten its influence on Africa.

That being said, the ability to speak Mandarin can only be viewed as a benefit. English is the de facto international language but there is an obvious advantage to fluency in a language spoken by the 2nd largest economy and 1.5 billion people.

</comment><comment><USER30> That actually really sounds promising. Wish I had some Mandarin "for free" as a part of my HS/Uni curriculum.

<comment><USER31> I'm pretty sure that this "free" Mandarin comes with a pretty thick string attached.

<comment><USER32> How much will the kids owe to the Chinese exactly?

<comment><USER31> I don't know. How much is Kenya worth exactly?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Kenya holds third highest Chinese debt in Africa [https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/business/2018/09/kenya-holds- thi...](https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/business/2018/09/kenya-holds-third- highest-chinese-debt-in-africa/)

Chinese names might be the next move :). Sorry but I don't think this is a coincidence.

</comment><comment><USER34> As a supporter of multilingual education in general I'm all for this in principle.

That said, language learning really needs a media ecosystem to sustain it outside the classroom. (Most Americans take token Spanish or French but would be hard pressed to go beyond 'hola' or 'bonjour' in real life.)

Beijing projects its power through economic and political means. But that's not enough. Unlike e.g. Japan (anime, video games) or South Korea (K-drama, K-pop), China still doesn't have pop-cultural "soft power" to help fuel said ecosystem -- I'd argue this is the main problem China needs to overcome for the language to really take off in non-Chinese communities.

</comment><comment><USER35> Shouldn't they start younger than 10? I remember reading that languages are easier to retain the younger you are.

<comment><USER36> Also, it's virtually impossible to gain fluency in a script after a very young age (around 5 if I recall correctly) and verbal language isn't much better, with native fluency very rare after the age of 13-17 or so.

<comment><USER37> Source please, and define fluency.

I learned english at 22, german at 25, and mandarin at 28, It took several years of daily studying for each language, but I did it, and I was able to use these languages in professional environments. Plenty of people do it in my experience.

<comment><USER36> I did state "native fluency" which is more descriptive.

Anyway, sure, here's a source I found quickly which actually makes stronger claims than I did: [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/at-what-age- does-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/at-what-age-does-our- ability-to-learn-a-new-language-like-a-native-speaker-disappear/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> It will be interesting to watch China try and exert soft power. Like everything they do, it's going to be a top-down affair. Hard to imagine the Standing Committee coming up with anything as influential as rock-n-roll or blue jeans.

Japan proved that East Asian culture is perfectly capable of capturing the global imagination. But that didn't happen until the culture had decades to develop in a prosperous and free society.

I imagine that for the most part we'll just see a lot more of this. Throwing money at nations that have a hard time saying no, and simply trying to buy cultural influence. I don't imagine it will be a huge success.

<comment><USER39> There's one way that China has done phenomenal with soft power already in a very bottom up fashion: tourism. At least throughout Asia, Chinese tourists are absolutely everywhere. This is a relatively new phenomena and I imagine it's a product of their middle class exploding (in a good way). You can also find countless Chinese migrating to other nations but still very much retaining their own culture.

As a result of these things the Chinese language is an increasingly valuable skill throughout the continent. And you even see a variety of things like signs and other things that are also written in a local language, English, and Chinese as well.

It's extremely difficult to predict where China is headed, but in my opinion they are blazing their own trail in a way that, for now at least, seems to be working phenomenally well. And there's one critical nuance here. China has a population of 1.4 billion that is _mostly_ united. If their economic growth and general influence continues along anything even vaguely resembling its current trajectory, they will be the most powerful and influential nation in the world in the very foreseeable future.

<comment><USER40> > If their economic growth and general influence continues along anything even > vaguely resembling its current trajectory, they will be the most powerful > and influential nation in the world in the very foreseeable future.

I agree China will become the world's largest economy in the near future, it remains to be seen if they will be able to escape the middle income trap. China demographically is getting older and is set for a decline in population. What happens if the population starts declining before achieving high-income status?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Obviously an anecdote, but a friend of Minsk told me that knowing Mandarin can easily raise your salary x2, especially on managerial/sales positions.

</comment><comment><USER42> It might be difficult, as chinese is incredibly difficult to learn. It seems just like a way to appease the Chinese government. I wonder what how they teach english.

</comment><comment><USER43> How Africa is becoming China's China - [https://youtu.be/zQV_DKQkT8o](https://youtu.be/zQV_DKQkT8o)

</comment><comment><USER32> I wish they taught me Chinese as well.

<comment><USER5> Have you started learning Chinese yet? It is quite fascinating. I've been learning for 4 years now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Warning, controversial opinion: Chinese is too hard to be cost-effective to learn.

I took 3 years' worth of Mandarin in college.

But when I traveled to Brazil, I was able to communicate more easily in Portuguese in just a month, than I was in China after 2 full years of courses plus two and a half months of intensive courses in Beijing.

Chinese is hard because it has virtually zero cognates with English, you have to learn every word new. (Contrast with Portuguese, where I "knew" half the words already because I could easily guess that "television" is just "televisão". Same with French, Italian, etc.)

And Chinese is hard because you have to learn how to "spell" every word separately -- if you thought zero cognates was hard, this is 10x harder.

Quite frankly it's an insane time commitment, and unless you plan to live most of your life in China or Taiwan, it's just not worth it if your goal is communication. Chinese people are learning English so they can communicate with the world. It might seem unfair, but there's just zero practical reason for most English speakers to learn Chinese beyond some basic greetings, except as a fun hobby or some minimum vocabulary for travel.

For more info, read the very famous article "Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard". [1] Anybody who wants to learn Chinese should read it first so they know what they're getting into.

[1] [http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html](http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html)

<comment><USER45> That's only true when you already speak English, or at least another Germanic or Romance language. Otherwise, all this applies to English exactly the same as it does to Chinese.

<comment><USER44> No, it's vastly easier for Chinese to learn English (or French or German) because they're generally phonetically-spelled languages.

There aren't any cognates, but you don't spend years memorizing thousands and thousands of characters to learn English.

And the payoff is much higher: learning Chinese only lets you communicate with Chinese/Taiwanese people. Learning English lets you communicate with a huge proportion of the world who also learns English as a second language, simply because it's the current lingua franca.

<comment><USER45> I learned English. The spelling is a nightmare, you essentially need to learn it twice. Chinese at least doesn't pretend to be phonetic.

You also need smaller vocabulary in Chinese - 3500 characters is all you need. English vocabulary is absolutely massive.

The grammar is pretty bizarre as well, as far as I am able to judge.

<comment> 52-6F-62 Tangential to the main topic, but relevant to some of your remarks about English grammar.

Have you ever read _Politics and the English Language_ by George Orwell?

Since covering it in High School, it's been my go to for all writing. Writing the way he describes will have everyone understand you. It doesn't need to be more complex than that. It might be argued that it's superior in most cases. (Sadly we never covered this in our general English classes. We only covered it in Creative Writing)

Here are his six rules for writing, and a link to the essay for anyone interested:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

[https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79p/](https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79p/)

\---

Edited to add my favourite example of what the essay is largely about:

 _Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

"""I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth"""

Here it is in modern English:

"""Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account."""_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Shouldn't the HN title stay the same as the article? The original title is *Mandarin Chinese, unless they changed it.

</comment><comment><USER47> That's pretty bad. Yet another sign of increasing Chinese dominance. I can't imagine an autocracy like China becoming the greatest superpower will work out well for anyone.

<comment><USER48> I know a few people in the clothes design industry and they all say manufacturing is moving out of Asia and into Africa.

According to them, by next year most of their stuff will be made there.

China has made a huge investment in Africa - so they will get a piece of that action.

Feels like the US is resting on their laurels.

Why the downvotes? This comment got a few reasonable responses and is within HN guidelines. Help me understand what is so offensive about this post

<comment><USER49> I recently had dinner with a friend who spent 8 years working for the US State dept all over Africa.

His take was simple. When the US shows up offering to build a road to the oil refinery we want to build we first ask them to make human rights reforms and so forth.

The Chinese just start handing out cash until they get what they want.

This strategy will result in the wholesale ownership of several African states by China if it hasn't already happened.

<comment><USER50> It is very interesting to me how the perspective of the Chinese government seems to be that they should run their entire sovereignty like a business. Some politicians in the US claim to want to run /government/ like a business, but China seems happy to run the entire country as one.

In China we effectively have a CEO in Xi Jinping, beholden to the board of investors that is the global economy. And the same forces are at play. China can punt on ethics so long as the return is good, and they have pressure to keep growing. So long as the banks are happy the game continues.

The global investment-backed economy is efficient for allocating resources for the purposes of increasing monetary value but it will always introduce a moral hazard since short term returns will usually be better when corners are cut.

<comment><USER51> Xiang?

<comment><USER52> Autocomplete from Xi probably.

<comment><USER50> yes, thank you

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Could be a great idea. There's a big possibility that Chinese will be more widely used over the planet.

<comment><USER54> We are headed to the world (universe) depicted in Firefly!

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> This is deeply unsettling to be honest. It means kenya is looking f or a long- term relationship with China even though chinas debt driven diplomacy is already pushing the country into a precarious financial state.

<comment><USER12> What "precarious financial state"? The Kenyan economy has grown at a steady, rapid 5% pace for the past decade, with no backsliding or instability. Are you sure you're not making assumptions based on political conventional wisdom, rather than facts and observation?

China wants trading partners, generally. It drives their economy, so it's in their best interest to see their partners do well. And since China has increased per capita GDP by 130x (in constant dollars) since 1960, they know something about lifting nations out of poverty.

edit: Per world bank data, Kenya's per capita GDP has increased every year since 2002, and has nearly quadrupled in that time (from $395 to over $1500). If that's a precarious state, sign me up! [[https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=KE)]

<comment><USER55> > Are you sure you're not making assumptions based on political conventional > wisdom, rather than facts and observation?

I tried really hard to make sense out of that. I really did.

> What "precarious financial state"?

\- "Kenya debt is rising to dangerous levels"[1]

\- "Kenya holds the 3rd largest chinese debt["2]

\- "Bleak 2019 for Kenyan tax payers"[3]

> rather than facts and observation?

I literally live here.

As for the 5% GDP growth you point out, surely much better than Tanzania, or Ethiopia right?.

> China wants trading partners, generally

> they know something about lifting nations out of poverty

Yup. Their economy badly needs a group of poor African countries as trading partners. definitely, nothing to do with power and global politics.

Here is china lifting nations out of poverty...

\- "Like Zambia, Sri Lanka also handed over port to China to pay off debt"[4]

Yup, uplifting stuff.

> Kenya's per capita GDP has increased every year since 2002, and has nearly > quadrupled in that time (from $395 to over $1500)

"Kenyans owe $1,0000 per capita" [5].

1\. [https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2018/08/06/kenyas-public- deb...](https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2018/08/06/kenyas-public-debt-is- rising-to-dangerous-levels_c1798513)

2\. [https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/business/2018/09/kenya-holds- thi...](https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/business/2018/09/kenya-holds-third- highest-chinese-debt-in-africa/)

3\. [https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/business/Bleak-2019-for- tax...](https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/business/Bleak-2019-for-taxpayers-as- Kenya-begins-repaying-loans/2560-4923632-bsy6lx/index.html)

4\. [https://www.africanliberty.org/2018/09/10/like-zambia-sri- la...](https://www.africanliberty.org/2018/09/10/like-zambia-sri-lanka-also- handed-over-port-to-china-to-pay-off-debt/)

5\. [https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2018/01/08/kenyans-owe- sh100...](https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2018/01/08/kenyans-owe- sh100000-each-in-public-debt_c1693640)

as bonus content, guess what security Kenya used to secure the last loan. read to find out

[https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/business/Mombasa-port- SGR-l...](https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/business/Mombasa-port-SGR-loan- default-Chinsa/2560-4903360-clh5nn/index.html)

If none of that can convince you, I just don't know what could. I'm exhausted at this point.

<comment><USER12> All good points. First things first... I assumed you're an American. If you're Kenyan, then I was wrong and you're coming from a more educated perspective. Please understand that Americans have some wild assumptions about the rest of the world.

The articles on Kenya's debt situation were very enlightening, thank you! It looks offhand like it's problematic, but not unsolvable. See where things are in another ten years. But a debt crisis isn't any better for lenders than it is for debtors. What good does it do China for Kenya to default on its loans?

As for 5% growth... that's really good. Maybe not the best in Africa, but far better than the mature economies of the West (most of Europe has hovered around 1% for the same period, and the US is 1.4%). That makes for an attractive investment opportunity, especially by non-state actors who are even less interested in defaulted loans than nations are.

As for China's interest... well, their manufacturing-based economy needs a steady supply of raw materials. Africa has those. And China is not interested in military occupation to enforce resource extraction, colonial style. That leaves trade, and trade has to be mutually beneficial over the long term, or one party will just stop participating.

(edit: As an aside, it's absurd and annoying that your comment is getting downvoted. I really wish people would stop using downvoting as a "disagree" button, especially for things they don't understand.)

<comment><USER55> understood, and sorry if I came off very angry. It's a topic I feel very strongly about.

<comment><USER12> Sure, that's understandable.

I hope you get where I'm coming from. The question, to me at least, is whether Chinese activity in Kenya does Kenya more good than harm, and I think it probably does. I also believe it's in China's best interest that Kenya becomes economically successful, and not default on its debt, and that China knows this.

If China is using economic relations to become a dominant player in Africa (as opposed to American gunboat diplomacy or British colonialism), they need to be perceived as a better deal for the countries involved. Which isn't that hard!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Starter files for GitHub issues and PR templates - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tylucaskelley/github-templates <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, author here! Would appreciate any feedback. Tried to make these general enough for any project and as thorough as possible. Using it in one of my own repos right now: [https://github.com/tylucaskelley/osx](https://github.com/tylucaskelley/osx)</comment>


Where could i learn JavaScript? - <AUTHOR> hello, my names yemper, i'm looking to learn javascript, the very basics. how would i learn, and what would i make when i learn it, what are some projects i could start on with the language to make myself more familiar with it.<p>i'm planning on getting the 18 macbook pro pretty much maxed out for development and i really want to take this seriously, but it's just harder for me to learn for some reason, if anyone could help, i'd greatly appreciate it. <comment><USER2> I can only recommend [https://javascript.info/](https://javascript.info/)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.freecodecamp.org/](https://www.freecodecamp.org/)</comment>


The next generation of mobile maps - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/next-generation-of-mobile-maps.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FMKuf+%28Official+Google+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

<comment><USER2> Duplicate:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2012819>

1 comment (so far)</comment>


Leaked Juul Documents Cast Doubt on Claim of 1M "Contaminated" Pods - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/juul-report-contamination-lawsuit <comment><AUTHOR> Direct link to leaked documents: [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6580991-Juul- Report-...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6580991-Juul-Report- BuzzFeed-News.html)</comment>


No, I'm not giving you my Google password - <AUTHOR> http://www.venturecake.com/no-im-not-giving-you-my-google-password/ A year after Google released their account authentication system, why are sites still asking for passwords that most users don't even give their loved ones? <comment><USER2> Most people don't know / care. It seems only the technically inclined & paranoid lose sleep over this. Until somebody they know gets hit by identity theft, that is ...

</comment><comment><USER3> > Most people don't even share their passwords with their spouses - why would > they give it to an third party website on the internet?

websites on the net won't withhold sex for three days because I said emailed an ex.

More seriously, it's obvious why no one follows his recomendation. Not only is google's page and extra step, but it's intimidating as hell!

<http://www.venturecake.com/images/google_authentication.png>

I don't see an easy way to fix this problem while letting these sites keep the high percentage of people releasing their contact lists.

<comment><AUTHOR> The 'This website has not registered with Google' is only true for websites that haven't registered with Google - which mine has not.

It would go away for sites that have registered with Google - which I don't think would be too hard. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any sites that used Google authentication at all. I think this probably has something to do with the whole 'why bother supporting every proprietary identity scheme' thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Facebook has extensive dossiers that its users unwisely volunteered and I predict it is all going to end in tears.

John Connor is not a Facebook user.

</comment><comment><USER5> That was as far as I got on the facebook signup.</comment>