New Topics

There are two questions that I am always asked with regard to this daily blurb:

• How do you come up with new topics every day?


• How can you write so much about such a small topic?

Getting new topics is easy:  I pay attention to what is happening around me.  Many of the topics discussed are reflections of what is happening in and around the Deployment Team on a daily basis.

As for the content, in many respects it is the same thing that makes everyone better:  practice.  The more you do something the better you get at it.  How do golfers get better?  They practice at the course they are going to play at.  How do writers get better?  They write about a topic, almost any topic.  How do presenters get better?  Join Toastmasters and practice presenting.  How do programmers get better?  Write programs.

While it may not be intuitive, writing programs for developers is a good way for them to get better.  Now, there is a caveat:  the programmer has to want to get better.  Just like all of the other people listed, if you want to improve and you practice at it, you will get better.  Now, this isn't to say that with practice everyone is going to be the Tiger Woods of .NET, but you will improve and that's the objective.  Write programs.  If you want to learn how something works, write a program to test things out. Try to figure out how to do it yourself before relying on books and web sites to tell you.  You are more likely to grow as a developer if you overcome the challenge yourself.

But above all, write.