July 24th, 2024

Learn in Public (2018)

The "Learning in Public" concept encourages sharing knowledge through blogs and forums, enhancing understanding, attracting mentorship, and creating professional opportunities, ultimately fostering a community of growth in the tech field.

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Learn in Public (2018)

The concept of "Learning in Public" emphasizes the importance of sharing knowledge and experiences openly rather than learning in isolation. The author advocates for creating content such as blogs, tutorials, and videos, and engaging in public forums like Stack Overflow or Reddit. This approach not only benefits others but also reinforces the learner's understanding and retention of information. The author encourages individuals to document their learning journeys, seek feedback, and embrace mistakes as part of the learning process. By teaching others, learners can solidify their own knowledge and attract mentorship from more experienced individuals in the field. The article highlights that many developers remain passive, and those who actively share their learning can stand out and become perceived as experts. The author also notes that this public engagement can lead to professional opportunities, as others may seek assistance or collaboration. Ultimately, the message is that sharing knowledge publicly fosters a community of learning and growth, benefiting both the individual and the wider tech community. The author concludes by suggesting that the act of teaching and sharing can lead to unexpected rewards, including financial compensation for expertise developed through public engagement.

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By @swyx - 4 months
oh wow. surprised to see this old piece here. it has certainly far outlasted my own expectations in terms of people quoting it and citing me on it on a weekly basis, even today. an updated chapter was rewritten for my book https://learninpublic.org/ (which yes is a few years late in the promised V2... IT WILL HAPPEN)

questions welcome. it has continued to reap rewards for me and others who follow the practice long after publication (see: https://latent.space/, my current implementation), which is IMO the best validation I can have.

By @ubertaco - 4 months
I love this bit here:

>The subheading under this rule would be: Try your best to be right, but don’t worry when you’re wrong. Repeatedly. If you feel uncomfortable, or like an impostor, good. You’re pushing yourself. Don’t assume you know everything, but try your best anyway, and let the internet correct you when you are inevitably wrong. Wear your noobyness on your sleeve.

It requires an ongoing practice of humility _and_ extending grace to yourself for your own mistakes or misunderstandings (on the basis of "everyone makes mistakes and has to learn"), which can be a good starting point for showing that same grace to others.

By @susam - 4 months
My own form of learning in public has been to host book clubs for the books I have been reading and then taking notes, sharing insights about them through blog posts, discussing them on IRC channels, etc. I have done two such book clubs so far. The first one was for Introduction to Analytic Number Theory (Apostol, 1976) and the second one was for Mastering Emacs (Petersen, 2022).

I have the meeting logs, details, etc. for them available here: https://susam.net/cc/

I plan to begin one more on Galois Theory (Stewart, 2015) quite soon. I am just waiting for the hardcover book to arrive! If this type of thing interests you, I'd love for you to join the discussion either in the IRC channel or the Matrix room linked on the page above.

By @toomuchtodo - 4 months
Previous:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29142158 - November 2021 (13 comments)

By @dSebastien - 4 months
I do it by sharing many of my notes using Obsidian Publish: https://notes.dsebastien.net/
By @coolThingsFirst - 4 months
This is absolute horseshit.

This industry is filled with peacockers who write posts about mundane things and it comes a race of bullshitting.

It’s ok to learn in private before you come to enlighten the whole world about your expertise.