Celebrating 3 Months of Algorithmically Speaking

How we started, how we are, and where we are going from here...

👋 Hello there, and welcome to another edition of Algorithmically Speaking!

Today’s edition is special, and the reason why is that the newsletter just turned 3 months old 🎉🎉🎉.

I want to celebrate with all of you who are part of this community by quickly recapping this 3-month journey. Something like:

• How it started.

• Where we are right now.

• Next steps for the community.

Also, I’m doing this post mainly for 3 reasons:

• To tell you about my journey as a technical writer and maybe inspire you to start writing about your own experiences (technical or not).

• To announce new ways in which you can be part of this community and contribute to it.

• And to thank you all for being here.

As I always say, you are the greatest part of this journey and your feedback means a lot to me. So, read until the end and comment below with all the suggestions you have to keep making this a safe space for learning.

And now, without further ado, let’s get started!

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🎯 How It Started

Well, 3 months ago there were no Algorithmically Speaking newsletters. At least not on substack.

I decided to start writing about technical topics of my interest on another platform. And, believe it or not, the first post I published this year was precisely on January 1st.

I experimented with my style (which I haven’t found yet), with different topics to write about, and that kept going for almost five months until I finally decided to move all my efforts to substack.

In the process, I had the pleasure to participate in a couple of writing contests and win the top prizes. Here are some links, in case you are curious about those events:

• Dev Retro 22 Writeathon.

• Debugging February Writeathon.

Also, realizing that technical writing could be both a source of income and pleasure for me opened my eyes to new possibilities.

I love writing, and most of all I love writing about things I enjoy. And I am very curious, which means I’m always experimenting and trying new things as long as they are interesting enough.

Then the best way to mix two of the things I enjoy the most was writing about topics I find useful and fun.

In my case, I have only written about Computer Science, Software Engineering, Algorithms, Coding Guidelines, etc… but I don’t reject the idea of me writing about Wellness and Sports in the future if I find it useful for someone as I find it useful for myself.

Things like the science behind sleeping and waking up, regular exercise, or proper nutrition are fascinating topics and I have found out that doing some adjustments to improve those aspects (among others) of your life can directly impact your performance when doing tasks like programming or solving really hard problems that require high levels of concentration.

But that’s maybe a topic for another day… or another newsletter. You let me know below how having a healthy life has influenced your professional life.

Coming back to writing, by the end of April substack seemed like the place where most of the voices I follow online were migrating. The community here felt great, the interactions were of great quality as opposed to other social media like Twitter, or LinkedIn, and it was fairly easy to create a publication and start writing right away.

So I carried those 28 emails I had on the other platform and started my first draft. 3 months later, I don’t regret making that decision. And I will show you why below.

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🚀 Where We Are

This image is probably the best way to show you where we stand right now as a community.

As you can see, we are approaching 700 members (chances are we are already 700+ by the time you are reading this) and 2 of you have decided to support my efforts by becoming paid members of Algorithmically Speaking.

The constant flow of new members gives me the strength I need to keep writing every week, as I know I’m not throwing words into a void here.

That being said, I have been experimenting with different types of posts which include some purely related to algorithms and abstract definitions, some more closely related to software development and engineering, some puzzles, some insiders, and some special posts like this one.

In total, we have a record of 18 posts published in 13 weeks. You can take a look at the entire archive if you want to check what has been published in the past 3 months.

The process of selecting the topics to write about is something like this:

In general, I think the reception of the posts has been good, but the problem with this approach is that I might end up rambling about various topics without making too much sense.

For example, right now I’m exploring new areas such as Data Science and Visualization but also Game Development. Both areas have a lot of interesting topics that I would love to write about and share my experiences.

You might recall this post where I started rambling about my first steps into network analysis:

And, while I’m ok with sometimes writing in a more structured approach, and sometimes in a more chaotic one, you might not feel the same way.

So please, leave a comment below with your suggestions on how would you like to see the articles of this publication come out. Try to answer some of these questions as an inspiration:

• What topics would you like to see more?

• What topics would you like to see less?

• Would you prefer a detailed series on a specific subject?

And now it’s time to move on to what the future of this community would look like.

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♾ Next Steps

As we grow as a community and we move forward together it is important to ask ourselves where are we going from time to time.

I asked myself this question last week and my answer was that no matter where we are going, I would like to keep going with all of you. And that means that I would like to interact with you much more than what I’ve done so far.

For that, I have some proposals in an attempt to provide you with more value than just the weekly post about algorithms and regular computer science stuff. Here we go!

📝 Guest Posts

First of all, you can become a much more important part of the community by writing a guest post on any topic that you like. The idea is simple, I create a draft, add you as a contributor, and we work together to get it published.

That way you get a chance to take your first steps into technical writing with me as your mentor or to write about a topic that you consider interesting if you already have some experience with technical writing.

You just have to send me an email to albexl@substack.com with the topic of your preference and we will get hands-on immediately but going at your pace.

Of course, paid members will be prioritized to publish their guest posts first, but don’t upgrade to a paid member just for that. You will get your post published no matter what.

And in case we have too many posts in the queue, we can start publishing 2 or 3 per week. We can decide if that seems like a good idea later.

📅 Choose The Topic For Next Week

That’s right! Starting this week you will have the opportunity to comment on the weekly post about what topic you would like to see next week.

The comment with the most “likes“ 🧡 asking for a topic will be the winner and I will write about it the next Friday. That means I will make the count of “likes“ on Sunday, granting myself enough days to write something with value during the week.

This way, the community can shape the future of Algorithmically Speaking, as we will always be talking about topics that people want to know about.

No difference between paid and regular members. All comments will be treated equally and fairly. The community decides.

🏆 Personal Lessons on Competitive Programming

Maybe you are here because you want to improve your algorithmic or problem-solving skills. Maybe because you want to crush that technical interview, or just have fun climbing up the rankings in online programming contests.

Whatever your case is, I’m offering personalized lessons to help you improve and level up your skills.

I’m happy to say that some of you have already contacted me to help you out with this. And the experience I’ve had so far has been amazing.

I want to reach out to more of you, get to know you a bit more, and try to help you achieve your goals as much as I can. Once again, just send an email to albexl@substack.com saying that you are interested in personalized lessons and I will give you all the details you will need to get started right away, at your pace.

I’m aware that if I get too many requests I might end up filling up my whole available time during the weeks and the point might come where I will not be able to give personalized lessons to new members.

For that reason, I was thinking of creating a separate space just for all of you interested in these specific lessons where we can interact as a more specialized community. I plan to have a couple of other lecturers and moderators help me out with setting this up.

Hopefully, those will be some of you.

Let me know what are the best options for running a community of people like us, interested in learning and creating safe spaces for sharing knowledge.

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👋 Last Words

It has been an amazing journey during these past 3 months and I hope it will continue to be like that in the future.

I believe that this community has the potential to become one of the greatest digital spaces where we can have meaningful conversations, teach, and learn from each other.

Thank you all for being here,

See you next week,

Alberto

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As always, if you think this newsletter provides value for someone you know, share it with them. Nothing will make me happier.