> I'm blogging one a week about dev stuff and it takes 2-4 hours depending on the topic.
I'm so jealous! :)
I publish a new post once every couple of months. Some posts take really long to prepare, like 40 hours (and more) of work long. The biggest problem is that it doesn't really show - for that much time my posts should be each as long as "Steve Yegge's Best Of" anthology.
I'm not even sure it's worth it as a learning experience, but at least it's still fun. I'm being told that my writing quality improves, too, so it's not that bad overall. It's still irritating that every time I try to write a post in a short amount of time it somehow spirals out of control and becomes 3 full days of work...
> I try to write a post in a short amount of time it somehow spirals out of control and becomes 3 full days of work...
Writing, especially when you want it to be good writing backed by solid evidence (or a solid plot), is not an easy thing. I liken it to programming: the language is rather poorly specified in comparison, but the planning and researched required to do it properly is at least as arduous.
Oh! Please don't feel bad about that. Writing short is harder than writing long. But it's worth it because it respects the time of the reader.
As an analogy, think of those radio talk show personalities that can go on for hours every day just running their mouths. It's impressive, but what they're doing is glib entertainment, a way for people to fill the hours while driving.
These days the world is filled with quickly-made, quickly written stuff. Nothing wrong with that, really. But I love it when I come across people who are doing something different.
Steve Yegge gets away with it because he's Steve Yegge. There's definitely lots of people that write blog posts that are too long, and if you're just starting and don't have name recognition yet, I'd say it's better to aim for a reasonable length that most people will at least get through.
I'm blogging one a week about dev stuff and it takes 2-4 hours depending on the topic.
I met a few devs with family and children, and they were blown away by my commitment.