Review of “Writing for developers” by Piotr Sarna and Cynthia Dunlop

Me: Hello. My name is Michał and I have been writing for the last 17 years. My WA (writer’s anonymous) group: Hello Michał!

Blogging is something really weird at its core. It’s a combination of ego pumping, honest pay-it-forward acts and both teaching and learning tool. At least that’s how I see it. Obviously, nowadays with the possibilities that AI gives us, blogging gets some bad press. Tons of content – I wouldn’t call it writing – just floods the net. So far it’s quite easy (at least for me), figuring out the real author of the post I am reading. At least when it was 100% generated by the LLM. However, truth to be told, finding an actual great technical post is a challenge today. Not only because of the quality, but mostly by the sheer amount of the content being created.

Taking that all under consideration, I was really surprised that Manning decided to publish a book about writing. Obviously, as they’re an IT-related publishing house, it wasn’t about becoming the next Shakespeare. “Writing for developers. Blogs that get read” leaves no room for imagination. The book written by Piotr Sarna and Cynthia Dunlop, concentrates on the blogosphere (is that still a word in 2025?), and how to write in a way that encourages readers to not only read, but also comment, share and enjoy it. The authors are an interesting duo – Piotr Sarna is a seasoned developer, and Cynthia Dunlop is a technical writer with an astonishingly long expertise in the field. I must admit – that shows. Reading “Writing for developers” was pure pleasure, not only because of its contents, but also the style used.

What do we have here?

The book consists of three parts. There’s no surprise that the first one is all about fundamentals. Both in terms of what blogging is, why writing can help you (and boost your career). To me that’s also the least interesting part of the book. I understand that some kind of scaffolding must be created at first, so the content can then expand into more in-depth material. However, I would argue that dedicating three whole chapters for an introduction is just too much! If there’s any flaw in the book – this is it. It’s not that the information provided within those chapters is useless. It’s not! It provides valid points and actual samples of the great blog posts. In my opinion though, it could be shortened to get to the point.

Yeah, the point. I want to come back to this topic later, but I must mention here what is a great value of the book. It is the fact that it is grounded in the whole content-delivery process. It’s not only about creating something (meaning – anything just for the sake of being able to scratch it from the to-do list), but writing something of value, and getting it posted in the relevant places. Ok, scratch that. Not only posted but also read. During the lecture I got a constant feeling that authors are trying to accompany me on the journey towards being not only an author, but a widely-read author. That feeling did not go away throughout the whole book.

Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat. And writing! Don’t forget writing!

I’ve mentioned the introduction to be unnecessarily long, but boy, that statement for sure does not apply to the second part. It contains of four separate chapters dedicated  only to the creation and delivery process. And yet – here they are. What’s more – I would never say that they do not bring value.  It may even look a little scary, how detailed and nuanced approach the authors took explaining some concepts. I gave it some thought and I found that they are already part of my writing flow. Which was nice to discover. Not that I am some renown blogger! Although I assume that with over 17 years of writing experience, I feel justified to claim that I’ve learned at least some of the ropes. And I can assure you, that many of the presented techniques and steps related to creating a working draft – just work. What is more, the authors take a practical approach. They not only provide raw knowledge, but do that working on a mock version of the blog post.

Practice makes perfect

This practical approach allows the reader to get way more from the lecture. At least I did 😉 We’re not talking bits and pieces. Nope. There are full-blown texts, first draft and the following iterations. I must admit that I find this before&after approach really illuminating. It’s like watching a full test-driven design process. What is more, it is not given from the start, but the whole chapter 5 (concerning optimizing our writing) is build around the concept of improving the first draft. I liked being put in the editor’s boots, also with the chapter dedicated for getting feedback and reviews. It was both fun and educational at the same time.

Another thing that I must mention – the authors are not scared of AI. Iterating over the first draft is done using ChatGPT, with the actual prompts and responses received. That’s also not the end of it – ChatGPT conversations are present throughout the entire book. So not only for gathering introductory feedback, but also refining the text.  I may have ranted on the AI-generated content above. That’s true, I won’t deny it. However, that was about AI creating content. As a review tool, LLMs are great, and I think that this is one of the  most valid use cases for using them. Seeing authors sharing the same view made my day better. To make whole thing even better – the whole appendix B is dedicated to AI usage.

Design patterns for writing

The third part of the book contains seven chapters. Each one presents a specific format of the article. It lists pros and cons, target audience, core characteristics, and what’s most important – examples of such articles. In my opinion, this is the part of the book that I will be revisiting often. The clear separation of the patterns make it easy to use when needed.

From my experience, patterns listed in this book’s part cover quite a vast field of technical blogging. However, what I think could make it even better is dedicating an additional chapter to describing every other type of the articles. Like, not to be bold – book reviews like this one. Or “lessons learned” pattern (which is described in chapter 11) but with more personal/life-based narrative. We got patterns that are presented only as strictly technical-matter oriented. And let’s be honest – lots of popular blog posts are purely non-technical, even if they’re written by principal engineers.

You blog. Where to next?

Last part of the “Writing for developers” takes us places. Literally 😉 We get chapters dedicated to exploring the ways to expand our viewership, changing blog post into conference talk, and to finish with the bang – writing the book. I was never that much interested in those topics, as I am seeing my blogging mostly as a learning tool. That made the lecture so interesting. I must admit – there are some things in those chapters that really sparked my attention. I plan to expand my toolbox based on the authors’ recommendations and tips. Let’s hope they will play nice in the future.

Summary

“Writing for developers” was one hell of a ride. However, truth to be told – it is not a book that everyone will enjoy. I’ve mentioned it at the beginning of this review. Writing technical content is not for everyone, and it seems to lose some ground in favor of podcasts or video. As useful and educational it may be, know-how of the writing process is not a topic for the broad audience. On the other hand, no matter if you’re just a beginner, or a seasoned blogger – if writing is what is on your mind – you won’t regret reading Piotr&Cynthia’s book. That I am sure of.