The sketchyTech Manifesto

 1.  Sharing as you learn has value
Aside from the fact that to become fully versed in any technology where the sands are always shifting is a near impossibility, it is true that learning from a learner holds its own value.

Once our learning is complete (or near to complete) all of those daunting documents become less daunting and we forget why we were ever scared by the small things (and what those small things even were). It becomes necessary in the position of accomplished expert, therefore, to imagine ourselves back into the role of learner. The recent learner, meanwhile, has only just been to the place where the learner close behind has just arrived. He or she remembers the path exactly and can guide the fellow learner across the bumps, smoothing the way as they go.

2.  Stand up and be corrected
It is important that we blog as we learn. Not only to guide others and as a record for ourselves, but also so that we can be corrected by people another step or more ahead, or on another path altogether. After all we all learn by our mistakes and the humiliations we suffer.

3.  It is important to acquire knowledge across a broad range of technologies
Learning about how to script something in JavaScript and then doing the same thing in Objective-C is valuable because we learn new ways to structure and order code. We learn the most useful ways to organise data and carry different ideas across our practice.

This is one example among many of the way in which allowing knowledge to pass across boundaries helps it to grow. There is no end to the combinations that will help you learn.

4.  Keep things as short as possible
Specs and documentation are often bloated, disorganised, spread across unlinked areas of a website. Lots is out of date and sometimes deprecated. Examples are often too long and need lengthy unpicking to find the piece of the puzzle you are missing. It is better to have lots of small, short examples that teach single things people will want to know without the surrounding cruft of a make-believe app.

5.  Listen to others and be inspired
Your social networks are full of people asking questions. Be inspired by people on twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Quora, Coderwall and StackOverflow to answer questions, to go further with ideas than others do. Use the opportunity of a blog to do more, but at the same time value its immediacy and the ability to respond to the needs of others quickly.

6.  Don't be put off by people who tell you that you don't know what you're talking about
Your work is of value to those in the same position as you. Your writings are not the final truth, they are a stepping stone to further, more exact knowledge.

One day the people who learnt from you will know more than you, but only because you were one of the people who took the first steps with them.

7.  Experiences from different fields add value to this one
ebooks and publishing-related technologies are a hybrid. People with IT degrees are of no more or less value than those with backgrounds in the traditional publishing industry. We need to work towards understanding the worlds of one another in order to progress and make good stuff. We need people who are bridges as well. Between programmers and art, between publishing and electronics, between typography and technology, between authors and the W3C, between indexers and the IDPF, and so on and so on. Don't treat each other like idiots.

http://sketchytech.blogspot.com/p/the-sketchytech-manifesto.html