I’m a big believer of “working in the open” - open-source, open science, open communication, that sort of thing. It’s not just that I think this stuff is ethnical or right (though it mostly is), I think it helps build things that really matter.
But it’s also really bloody hard: exposing yourself to the scrutiny of the world (and more specifically, the internet), while doing the extra real, chunky, hard work to put yourself under that withering gaze, really isn’t something I do naturally…. but a few things in the last few months have reminded me it’s probably worth it. So here’s my commitment for 2025: I’m sharing more unfinished stuff. And maybe, just maybe, that will help me actually finish some bits along the way.
So, I’m doing two things:
- More pre-prints! I’m taking all the ‘not quite finished’ research I’ve got, and putting it out there. You can see the first two pieces here
- More early-work! I’ve decided to start putting my random pieces of research up earlier. You’ll be able to see them all in the “work in progress” tag here
So, why all this faff? I’m hoping working in the open will help me build more stuff, be better at communicating, and do better science. If you want to see nearly all my arguments articulated far better than I probably will, you can start by watching this excellent video by Todepond, who kicked off a lot of this thinking.
Build more stuff
Todepond (who also works on Tldraw, which is also very awesome) thinks we should all be sharing more crappy fiddles: that we all spend so long sitting on early and half-finished work, worried about the harsh reaction of public scrutiny, that we miss out on all the incredible benefits of the internets gaze: lots of (sometimes helpful) feedback, and an army of nerds often willing to help build stuff.
I should probably recognise that I’ve got some pretty chonky privilege here: as a good looking, straight white man, the internet is a lot less harsh and angry at me than it is too others. Plenty of people don’t have the luxury of putting stuff onto the internet and it not being a horrible, abusive place… But I’m going to take Lu’s inspirational call to arms to heart, and share more stuff.
More, better writing
Technical writers I admire share a few things in common: they write often, they write in public, but most importantly they write for themselves. I’m endlessly inspired by people like Simon or Terence, who are terrifyingly prolific just by regularly, consistently putting stuff into the wild, but also people like Jeremy Howard of fast.ai, who puts a huge emphasis on writing up what you build to help you and others learn.
Writing in public is hard, and doing it consistently is harder still, but it helps you learn - just like taking notes, putting words into the wild forces you to put them in order in your head…and in the long run, I’m hoping it will help me write better. So here is to consistent writing in 2025.
Better science
Now, this might be the most self-agrandising writing I’ve ever done, but bear with me: writing in public is how good science happens.
I’ve done a fair bit of thinking about the scientific process in the last few years. I started a PhD, which led to most of my work being stuck inside endless drafts while I fretted about while it was ready for publication. I’ve been inspired by machine learning researchers who put everything in pre-prints (though I do wonder who reads them). And meanwhile, Elon and Yann LeCun are duking it out about technical papers on twitter. And more importantly, I’ve seen people building exciting new networks to think about what science could be.
The very best science is built on collaborations you never saw coming. It’s built on connections, networks and communities, on the insights of brilliant humans standing on the shoulders of other excellent humans. Very often, those humans didn’t meet in the corridors of prestigious universities or in lecture halls, but in cafes and bars, in letters, or even on social media. Communities and networks build innovation.
Learning (and after all, that’s what science is) happens to us all together. So share your thoughts with the world. I’m going to try and do more of it!