Tips on how you can use various forms of writing to advance your engineering skills. This talk content is primarily targeted towards iOS developers, but can be used for any software engineering medium.

1. @kristinathaikristina.io
Kristina Thai, iOS software engineer
Become a Better Engineer
Through Writing

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Hi, I’m Kristina Thai !
📱 🌶⌚

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What makes a good engineer?

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Engineer Checklist*
01
02
03
04
“Soft” skills
Communicates well
Passion for learning
Learns from mistakes
Teacher/mentor
* not a comprehensive list
01
02
03
Technical Skills
Strong coder
Domain expert
Problem solver

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What does this have
to do with writing?

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Code and essays have a lot more in common.
The product is a sequence of logical statements,
bundled into modular units – whether it be
functions or paragraphs.
Like good prose, good code is concise.
Bad code wastes CPU cycles; bad essays waste
brain cycles.
“
http://www.shubhro.com/2014/12/27/software-engineers-should-write/
-Shubhro Saha

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4 writing channels that
help engineers

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📓 Personal Journal
❓ Question & Answer Forums
📖 Blogging
📝 Technical Tutorials

10. 01
Personal Journal
✦ private place to record your technical challenges
📓

11. @kristinathaikristina.io
Personal Journal📓
Benefits
✦ Reflection time
✦ For your eyes only
✦ Easy to get started
Challenges
✦ Hard to keep up
✦ Doesn’t benefit anyone
else
✦ No one to correct you if
you’re wrong
Engineer Checklist
Coding skills
Domain expert
Problem solver
Communicates well
Learn from mistakes

12. 02
Developer Q&A Forums
✦ places to get help with your technical problems
✦ knowledgable experts answer questions
❓

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Developer Q&A Forums
Benefits
✦ Learn what others are
struggling with
✦ Easy to pick up
whenever you want
✦ Bite-sized chunks
✦ Builds reputation
Challenges
✦ Negative comments
✦ Overt hostility
❓
Engineer Checklist
Coding skillsDomain expertProblem solverCommunicates wellTeacher/mentor

16. 03
Blogging
✦ public place to record your technical challenges
📖

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http://swift.ayaka.me/

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http://nshipster.com/

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http://techblog.netflix.com/

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Blogging
Benefits
✦ Public exposure
✦ Build reputation
✦ Reflection time
Challenges
✦ Lots of time &
commitment
✦ Keeping your blog fresh
& unique
📖 Engineer Checklist
Coding skills
Domain expert
Problem solver
Communicates well
Passion for learning
Learn from mistakes
Teacher/mentor

21. 04
Technical Tutorials
✦ step-by-step technical walkthroughs that teach others
how to do something
✦ usually has a working demo project
📝

22. @kristinathaikristina.io
https://www.natashatherobot.com

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https://www.raywenderlich.com/

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Technical Tutorials
Benefits
✦ Best to build reputation
✦ Reinforces learning
✦ Build full projects
Challenges
✦ Even MORE time
& commitment
✦ Find unique & undiscovered
solutions
📝 Engineer Check
Coding skills
Domain expert
Problem solver
Communicates well
Passion for learning
Learn from mistakes Teacher/mentor

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❓❓❓
🙎
That’s a lot!

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My Journey

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Newsletters

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As of Oct 4, 2015
Website Stats

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Realm Blog Contribution

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Invites to Speak

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Getting Started

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Engineer Checklist
01
02
03
04
“Soft” skills
Communicates well
Passion for learning
Learns from mistakes
Teacher/mentor
01
02
03
Technical Skills
Strong coder
Domain expert
Problem solver

37. 01
Personal Journal
✦ private place to record your technical challenges
📓

38. @kristinathaikristina.io
Personal Journal
Easiest way - create a private online one
✦ Creating a private Tumblr
✦ Adjust privacy settings on wordpress.com
Offline Journals/Other writing platforms
✦ Day One app
✦ Evernote
✦ Atom/Sublime Text

39. 02
Developer Q&A Forums
✦ places to get help with your technical problems
✦ knowledgable experts answer questions
❓

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Developer Q&A Forums
Number 1 thing to keep in mind - community rules and
communication styles on these forums
Getting started with Stack Overflow
Getting started on Quora

41. 03
Blogging
✦ public place to record your technical challenges
📖

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Blogging
Blogging platforms - hosted
Getting started with Medium
Github pages + Jekyll
Ghost.org
Blogging platforms - self-hosted
WordPress.org
SyntaxHighlighter plugin
Wordfence Security plugin

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Blogging
Blogging process
1. Decide on a topic
2. Lay the foundation/describe the context
3. Highlight various approaches
4. End with most optimal solution
✦ Or a question if you haven’t figured it out yourself

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Blogging
Motivation
Most people give up too early

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Blogging
Motivation
The insanely slow road to building a blog (and why most people give it up)

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Blogging
Motivation
✦ How do I keep up with it all: blogging, online life &
more
✦ 5 ways to keep your blog content fresh
✦ How do I start a blog and keep it up? - Quora
✦ You should write blogs
✦ Software engineers should write

47. 04
Technical Tutorials
✦ step-by-step technical walkthroughs that teach others
how to do something
✦ usually has a working demo project
📝

48. @kristinathaikristina.io
Technical Tutorials
Tutorial creation process
1. Decide on a topic
✦ Doesn’t have to be all encompassing
✦ Determine your audience
✦ Latest questions on Stack Overflow
2. Create working project/write working code samples

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Technical Tutorials
Tutorial creation process
3. Create step-by-step tutorial based on project/code
samples
✦ Resource: how to write a programming tutorial
✦ My first tutorial
✦ Screenshots & copy and paste code snippets
✦ Starter code project

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Technical Tutorials
Tutorial creation process
4. Upload sample project to GitHub
5. Upload tutorial to website
6. Advertise on Twitter/other social media
✦ #iOSdev #swiftlang #watchOS
✦ Newsletter accounts & influential people
✦ Post to answer a Stack Overflow question

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Tips for getting started
🎓
💻
👭
Don’t have to be THE expert
Check out your side projects
Find a blogging buddy

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kristina.io/writing

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Thanks!
me@kristina.io