Building in Public
Tags: aws, buildinginpublic, cloud, webdev
Published: 2024-06-03 17:52:51

**Building in Public** is rather quite self-explanatory: 
Building. In. Public, need I say more? 

Building in Public basically emphasizes and hopes to encourage you to develop the habit of documenting and sharing your journey, as it happens _in near real time_, which is why I have decided to document the development of my 'Pet Project' site using AWS services (mostly).

I say mostly, because I had intended to build a 100% AWS Cloud Native site, but I ended up registering my domain with a local provider which was four times cheaper than registering with Amazon Route53 (AWS's DNS Service), so technically, my future site has been optimized for cost already...

For more details, it is a _.co.za_ domain which is _ZAR 90_, which roughly equates to _USD 5_, and on Amazon Route53 it is _USD 13_, so hopefully, down the line, I hope Route53 becomes the cheaper option.


### What Are the Benefits of Building in Public?
There are numerous benefits of building in public but primarily:

**Feedback**: You get the opportunity to receive feedback in real time. This will help you make better choices instantaneously, especially if you haven’t realized that there’s a better alternative way to do something.

**Community**: You get the chance to engage with like-minded individuals who may be on the same journey. You also get to interact with people in more advanced positions. By learning from their mistakes, successes, and experiences, you gain valuable, actionable insights. These insights can help you progress faster by being part of something, rather than being a directionless, confused lone wolf.

**Enhanced Communication Skills**: Since building in public requires you to explain and document your steps, it encourages you to communicate more. As a result, you learn more as you transform your thoughts and actions into nuanced and structured words, either written or spoken, that others can effectively consume.

**Knowledge Acquisition and Retention**:  There is a difference between active learning, which involves building and documenting, and passive learning, which involves reading and watching videos. By building in public, you engage in active learning, which enables you to retain the knowledge you acquire through the mistakes you make. Furthermore, by documenting your steps, you learn while teaching yourself and others. Thus, you are continuously and iteratively acquiring and retaining knowledge on another level.

**Accountability**: When you build in public, it means that you’re no longer the only one aware of your project. With others watching, you might feel more accountable and be more determined to see your project through. Accountability places responsibility on your shoulders. Therefore, you won’t quit as easily as you would when you lack accountability. The faster you fail, the faster you get up and try again.


### Conclusion
When you are building in public, you are not only building your project and your skills, but you are also building a real time feedback system, community, accountability, communication skills and enhanced knowledge acquisition.
You get the opportunity to learn, unlearn and relearn - live.

**Let's Build**... _In Public_.