Welcome

Hi, I'm Sahedul. This is the first post on my blog, so I want to use it to explain why the blog exists, what I plan to write about, and what you can expect if you decide to keep reading.

Why I started this

The short answer is that I forget things.

I work as a software engineer, and a large part of the job is learning. I read documentation, I try something, it breaks, I work out why, and eventually it works. A few months later I run into the same problem and realise I only remember half of the answer. The same thing happens outside of work. I read a book or have a long conversation with a friend, I come away with a clear thought, and a few weeks later that thought is gone.

Writing fixes this for me. When I write something down I have to understand it well enough to explain it, and that is usually the point where I find out what I don't understand yet. And once it is written, I can come back to it.

So this blog is first of all a notebook for myself. I am making it public because notes I know other people might read are notes I write more carefully. If something here turns out to be useful to you as well, I'm glad.

What I will write about

Some of it will be technical. I build software for a living, so I will write about problems I ran into and how I solved them, tools I tried and what I think of them, and things I wish someone had explained to me earlier. I will try to write these posts so that you can follow them without already knowing the answer.

But work is only one part of my life, and I don't want this to be only a programming blog. I also think a lot about politics, love, religion, individual freedom, and how people live their lives in general. These are the subjects I end up talking about with friends late at night, and I want a place to think them through properly.

I am not an expert on any of those subjects. When I write about them, I am writing as someone who is curious and trying to understand, not as someone with authority. Please read those posts that way.

How I will write

I have a few rules for myself.

I will use plain words. If a sentence can be simpler, I will make it simpler. I don't enjoy reading writing that tries to sound clever, so I will try not to produce it.

I will say what I actually think. That includes saying "I don't know" or "I'm not sure" when that is the truth.

I will be wrong sometimes. When I find out that I was, I will correct the post and say that I changed it, instead of quietly editing it or deleting it.

I am not going to promise a schedule. I would rather publish one post I am happy with than four that I wrote because a calendar told me to. Some months there will be several posts and some months there may be none.

If you disagree with me

You probably will at some point, especially on politics and religion. That is fine, and I mean that.

I would rather understand a view I disagree with than win an argument. Most of what I believe today is different from what I believed ten years ago, and it changed because someone showed me something I had not considered. I expect that to keep happening, and I hope some of it happens because of this blog.

There is no comment section here. If you want to respond to something, write to me at hello@sahedul.com. I read everything I receive and I reply when I can. A thoughtful email that tells me where I got it wrong is one of the best things this blog could give me.

About the site itself

I built this site myself, including the editor I am typing this post into. I did it partly because I wanted to own the place where my writing lives, and partly because building things is how I learn. I will write about how it works in a later post for anyone who is interested.

If you want to follow along, the site has an RSS feed, and every new post will show up on the blog page. There is no newsletter and nothing to sign up for.

Thank you for reading

That is all for the first post. If you read this far, thank you. I know there is a lot to read on the internet, and I don't take it for granted that you spent a few minutes here.

More soon...

Sahedul Islam Rony