This week, I have become the Zone Leader of the Web Builder Zone of the DZone Network. As you may have noticed, my republished articles on DZone have experienced thousands of visits and many upvotes, so I'm moving to a position which involves writing original content for DZone, as I have done with php|architect in the last months.
What does this imply for the subscriber of this blog? Really not much. You will continue to get content for free, but I will divide my writing between this personal blog and DZone. Mainly PHP-related content will be published on DZone during the first part of the week, while I will continue to write here about other topics such as Agile methodologies, general object-oriented programming and Java, Domain-Driven Design and so on.
I will continue however to post in my weekly roundup the links to original articles of mine published all over the web, so that you don't miss anything. There is no author's personal feed to subscribe to on DZone, but this is the full one for the Web Builder Zone if you want to be promptly updated.
As a side note, I'm impressed by the impact that a personal blog like this has been on my opportunities, as a mean to demonstrate my expertise. In 2009, before opening this hosted blog at zero cost, I was a freelance developer who worked on custom PHP applications on a per-project basis. Italy isn't full of opportunities for talented people and every project seemed equal to the next.
Fast forward two hundred posts later, my name is recognized and I got to write PHP-related articles for two of the must popular content providers in the field, DZone and php|architect. I had also been invited to propose a talk for the Italian PHP conference, phpDay, which had been subsequently accepted. I will be a speaker on phpDay, a really unexpected event.
I started an open source project, NakedPhp, which has seen some good recognition thanks to its appearance in this blog. I wish I could have more time to dedicate to it as I feel the idea it is based on, the Naked Objects pattern, is really valuable for enterprise applications, a field PHP could conquer if it had more standards. Someone wants to push to the git repository? :)
My English knowledge has widely improved and my writing is now fluent. I have no fear about the upcoming Toefl exam I must pass in order to get my Bachelor's degree (feel free to find a grammatical error in this article now :)
The point is, this journey helped me a lot in my career path: this blog is not an year old yet and I have landed two flexible freelance writing positions, a showcase for my personal projects, and a talk at a conference. Thank you all for the time you give to my articles, and the retweets you do.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The impact of a personal blog
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15 comments:
The thing is that all, and I mean, ALL your articles are insightful and crystal clear. No surprise you have such a big fan base! I want to start a blog and your example is very inspiring. I wish I could write in italian as fluently as you write in english. Keep up the good work. You rock:
;)
From the other side.. Giorgio, how did you learn English so well? I wish I could write as fluently as you :)
Thanks for your congratulations.
salim, Italian doesn't really matter in the field of information technology. If you want to learn something other than English, go for Spanish or Chinese Mandarin. :)
e.s.t., I use a full-immersion strategy: Ubuntu and all applications or web applications in their English versions, plus English university textbooks. It was a radical choice but it helped me a lot.
Congratulations, Girgio - it's well-deserved!
Since you asked....
I was a freelance developer which worked on
should be
I was a freelance developer who worked on
or maybe even
I was a freelance developer that worked on
Thanks, the difference between pronouns is clear to me but sometimes I mix up them while rephrasing. About 'that', I prefer to avoid it in writing. :)
Congratulations Giorgio! I've been following your posts for a while now and I must say that I find them absolutely outstanding. Thanks for sharing your knowledge, I wish you the best of luck in your coming projects.
Congratulations Giorgio!
Ironically you forgot a closing bracket and a period on this sentence:
[...] degree (feel free to find a grammatical error in this article now :)
Good job though, that is pretty awesome.
Sean, actually that is intentional:
http://xkcd.com/541/
"I'm impressed by the impact that a personal blog like this has been on my opportunities, as a mean to demonstrate my expertise"
->
"I'm impressed by the impact that a personal blog like this has HAD on my opportunities, as a meanS to demonstrate my expertise." Things have impacts on things, not are impacts on things.
"I had also been invited to propose a talk for the Italian PHP conference, phpDay, which had been subsequently accepted."
->
"I HAVE also been invited to propose a talk for the Italian PHP conference, phpDay, which HAS been subsequently accepted." Given that the previous sentence was in the present tense.
"I have no fear about the upcoming Toefl exam"
->
"I have no fear OF the upcoming Toefl exam"
"I started an open source project, NakedPhp, which has seen some good recognition"
->
"I started an open source project, NakedPhp, which has RECEIVED some good recognition"
Still, a most impressive command of English in so short a time. I salute you, sir!
happy for your achievements.. :) congratulations..
so humble...
marry me!
sorry, couldn't resist
Hey Giorgio, I follow your blog for quite a while and since the start it has been a pleasure to read your posts. Very concise and useful information!. Congratulations!
Though I have a question, why don't you chose for your thesis the NakedPhp project you already started?
ice_j7,
it's not so simple. The teachers make up a list of thesis proposals, and also PHP is not the preferred language in academia.
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