Learning in Public: Why I’m Starting This Blog

Introduction

I’ve spent years building products, scaling systems, and mentoring teammates, much of it behind closed doors. This blog is my commitment to learn in public: to share the patterns, the dead ends, and the reasoning that turns problems into progress.

Learning in public isn’t about perfection. I don’t believe in perfection. To me, perfection comes from starting with something modest and improving it over and over again. And that’s the spirit here: try, learn, and improve.

There are so many things I’d like to write about. Topics I feel confident in, things I simply enjoy, and areas I want to experiment with. Every learning experience adds up, and I believe all of them are worth sharing.

What You’ll Find Here

The main theme is, of course, web development. That’s my craft, and what I’ve dedicated my career to for over a decade. I’m not a guru or the ultimate authority, but I believe everyone can contribute something valuable. What we’ve built as a community didn’t come from one brilliant person doing it all. It came from countless small contributions. This blog is my way of adding my own grain of sand.

When it comes to web development topics, JavaScript frameworks will be at the top of the list, mainly React and Next.js. I also enjoy experimenting with Astro and Svelte. Naturally, there will be plenty of HTML and CSS along the way.

On the backend side, I might cover relational and non-relational databases, frameworks like Express or Laravel, and more. I don’t want to lock myself into a fixed list, but other areas I’m passionate about include performance optimization, analytics, and Core Web Vitals.

More Than Just Code

Another subject I want to talk about is the social side of web developmet. The way we collaborate, share knowledge, and grow together as professionals.

These are challenges most developers face, since in our field not many people are naturally extroverted. I believe soft skills make up well over 50% of the job. Unless we’re coding strictly for ourselves, we’ll always need to communicate, whether with colleagues or with clients.

Unfortunately, soft skills have often been undervalued in education, when in reality they should be given much higher priority. I’ve seen excellent developers lose opportunities because they couldn’t express themselves clearly, and I’ve also seen developers with only basic technical knowledge advance simply because of their ability to connect with others. Neither approach is right or wrong, but we should aim for balance and recognize that socializing is a skill we also need to train.

That’s why I’ll likely include content related to soft skills too. How to talk with managers, how to lead conversations with your team, or how to distribute tasks effectively. Our career path shouldn’t be limited just because we struggle to express ourselves. Communication should never be a roadblock.

Learning Out Loud

I don’t plan to publish every day, or even weekly. For now, I’ll aim for one post per month and try to keep that pace. I already have plenty of ideas in mind, but I’d rather focus on quality than on pushing out too much content. If I end up enjoying writing and the content proves to be useful, I’ll probably post more often.

For now, I’ll start by sharing some personal experiences. Later I’ll add guides, experiments, or simply short notes. If I come across something interesting, I’ll share it, even if it feels more like a tweet than a full blog entry.

There are many things I’m unsure about, and honestly I don’t feel completely in my element. But I think that’s what makes it exciting. Nobody’s life is at stake here. At most, I might feel a bit embarrassed, but the potential for learning far outweighs any downside. If I’m wrong, someone will correct me and I’ll learn. If nobody reads what I write, that’s fine too. If just one person comes across it at some point and finds it useful, that’s already enough for me.

Tracking and Experiments

Simply having my own website already feels like a big accomplishment. At first, I considered making it just a portfolio, but I think a blog opens up far more possibilities. And if I ever want to showcase a project, I can always do that in a dedicated post.

What worries me the most is not having enough time, but the truth is I don’t have any strict goals to meet. While I’d love to keep this blog going over time, there’s no project manager here keeping track of deadlines :D

One thing I am excited about, though, is experimenting with metrics. Of course, you need readers for that, but the blog will have some tracking in place with Umami (maybe I’ll even write a post about it). I’ll be adding plenty of events to get a sense of how users interact with the site, for example, clicks on posts from the homepage, related posts, tags, completion rate, and so on.

Maybe in the future this will come in handy for a post analyzing the blog’s stats.

Interesting Things I’ll Keep in Mind When Writing

My editorial checklist

1. Who is this for? (persona + problem)
2. What should they be able to do after reading? (outcome)
3. One clear structure: intro → body → takeaway
4. Examples and/or data to support the claims
5. Skimmable: headings, lists, and code blocks
6. Images or diagrams where they reduce cognitive load
7. SEO: descriptive title, meta description, sensible URL

My publishing pipeline

1. Capture ideas in a backlog (notes, code, screenshots).
2. Draft outline → identify audience and outcome.
3. Write the first ugly draft; add examples/data.
4. Edit for structure and clarity; add code blocks and images.
5. Use AI to review the text for errors and to get some feedback.
6. If too complex, ship a small version; schedule a follow-up to deepen.

Conclusion

This blog is a deliberate practice: learn, distill, and share.

If you’re on a similar path, I hope these notes help you move faster with more confidence.

Thanks for reading, and see you in the next post.

Matias