I gave up on blogging
I learned to code at a programming school called Fjord Boot Camp, and when I started, I signed up for Hatena Blog so I could write about what I was learning each day. But writing a tech blog turned out to be far more work than I’d expected. Even for a learning log, I didn’t want to publish anything with mistakes in it, so every post needed careful review, and I rarely finished one. On top of that, a community platform like Hatena Blog is a very public space. I found myself fussing over every phrase and tone, and before long, writing felt like a chore.
I wanted to write in English
Despite giving up on blogging, I still had this idea of translating my tech posts into English and publishing them. I used to work as a translator and English is one of my strengths, so I thought it might give me a bit of an edge when changing careers. I also hoped it would be a painless way to pick up technical English: two birds with one stone. But if I couldn’t keep going on Hatena Blog, it was obvious I wouldn’t last on an international platform like Medium either.
So I decided to build my own place to write
I kept wishing I had a place where I could quietly build up posts in both Japanese and English at my own pace, without worrying about what anyone thought. About a year and a half into my studies at Fjord, while waiting for a code review on one of my assignments, I thought, “Why not just build it myself?” That’s how this blog began.
At the time, I hadn’t yet absorbed Fjord’s lessons on what web development is really about. As I built it, I got a little carried away. I forgot my original goal of quietly writing for myself and came up with a grand concept: “a blog for engineers who want to share their knowledge with the world.” I even gave it a flashy name, Dual Pascal, and deployed it. A year went by, and after a lot of back and forth, I quietly returned to my original idea. The result is the service you’re using now.
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
