Recently I’m definitely more into talks/presentation that are not very one-technology-oriented. Technologies come and go, but foundation is what counts. And good example of such talk is Chiu-Ki Chan - How to be an Android Expert from DroidCon in Berlin.
You might have (not) noticed, that I had a long vacation. I mean, really long, which required long preparation and doing many things after my return. But I knew I would come back to blogging.
Why? Because I care about my development. For me blog is not about popularity but more about writing down my thought process and putting all my hours of research into something tangible. I can’t count how many times I was reading about some topic (often not programming related) for many hours, sometimes even days. And when similar case comes back a few months later I have only general idea about it and I’d have to dig long time to bring back everything I learned back then. And if at the same time I can help someone?
Sure, learning is learning, you will always remember something, some interesting facts etc. Nevertheless, to back up your claims and/or knowledge you need something more. You need more order.
Blogging gives you all of that and even more. To explain a topic to anyone, you really need to understand it. Depth of this knowledge is dependent on many things, but at least you need to know the basics. And basic, structured knowledge is all you need for the most part. I strongly believe that you don’t understand something, if you can’t explain it to someone. So blogging puts your knowledge to test.
Not only that, but when you write, you want to write correct things, hopefully. I respect my readers and listeners, so I really strive to have all my facts checked and arguments logical. You can bend logic in your head, you can omit things when convincing yourself. But when you write down all of this, you have to face the truth: are you arguments really meaningful? Would YOU believe the author of your post? Looking at your thoughts from different perspective really changes a lot.
You need that to become an expert. Without challenging yourself, you can’t possibly know if you are right. That’s why I really encourage you to comment if you don’t agree with me. I’m open to discussion - we can only both benefit from that.
With that introduction, I really encourage you to watch Chiu-Ki Chan presentation:
Are you done? Then start implementing her advice.