With my first week at the Recurse Center, I’ve decided to start doing the Iron Blogger challenge. Basically, the idea is pretty simple; write a blog post every week, if you fail, you owe the group $5. It doesn’t have to be about tech or software, and even if it’s obvious filler material it still counts. The point is to just get in the habit of publishing and writing every week.

For me, the point of this challenge for me is not about showing off new programming projects, sharing my thoughts, or even having people read my blog. Really, I only have one goal in particular:

I want to practice writing

Blogging is really just a way for me to practice writing. Personally, I think writing is an incredibly important skill in software engineering, and in general. I can’t even begin to count the amount of communication I’ve done at work through written documentation, countless README files, Slack messages, and emails. Although technical writing is a bit of a different beast compared to blogging, I think that just practicing writing is an important exercise for any software engineer.

In terms of topics, I definitely want to cover various technical subjects (I am a programmer after all) that I learn about. Hopefully I will have a ton to write about (especially since I am at RC right now)! However, I will definitely not be writing purely technical posts; I probably won’t have enough material first of all, and second of all, I am interested in much more than just software.

If I really had any goal for this challenge, it would be to come back to these old blog posts one day and say “wow these suck”. After all, it is a challenge - I am supposed to struggle and learn.