By the ever-wise Eugene Yan

URL: https://eugeneyan.com/writing/writing-and-coding/

Notable quotes:

At the start of our careers, it’s all about delivery. We contribute by implementing and delivering systems (via writing code)… So as we gain experience and grow our fangs, the way in which we create impact changes. Instead of implementing systems ourselves, it becomes more valuable to guide and serve the team. A great way to do this is via writing documents.

In addition, writing helps with knowledge retention and transfer. Our memory is leaky—we forget as much as 90% of what we read within 7 days. Writing is like saving knowledge to a database. And now, instead of asking us, people can access our knowledge via that database (i.e., writing)—this helps us save time.

Writing documents is like writing code. Code is for machines; documents are for people.

“As you become a tech leader, you need to think about the future. The experienced are those who know what the corners are and how to look around them. They have to parse the business problems, do the (design and code) reviews, and minimize the errors that the team commits.” – David Said

Here’s where writing helps. It scales well—once written, an API spec can be easily distributed without additional effort. It clarifies—the same spec can help achieve alignment and unblock multiple teams at once. Also, by writing about the lessons we’ve learned and the how-tos, we pave the way for those who follow our footsteps: