Introducing #devjournal
Tags: devjournal, meta
Published: 2019-08-30 19:56:00

---
title: Introducing #devjournal
published: true
description: Share your experiences with the community!
tags: devjournal, meta
cover_image: https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/jm6s5p8tnk6y5po08ftk.jpg
---

*Photo by [Cathryn Lavery](https://unsplash.com/@cathrynlavery?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/search/photos/journal?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)*

There's been an awesome sort of article floating around DEV for some time: one where the author publicly journals their experiences as a developer.

{% link https://dev.to/ruthmoog/weeknotes-12-makers-5b8e %}

{% link https://dev.to/anubhav8421/10-days-as-a-software-developer-55dp %}

{% link https://dev.to/ferueda/what-i-learned-last-week-1i33 %}

{% link https://dev.to/ryan_furrer/weekly-goals-week-of-7-21-19-2ffe %}

These have always felt like they needed their own tag to call home...and now they have one: the `#devjournal` tag!

# What Belongs Here?

Any time you write a post describing your own experiences, consider adding the `#devjournal` tag. For example...

* Development logs detailing your team's progress,
* Top five things you learned this week,
* Some "brilliant" idea you tried that utterly bombed (and why),
* Your weekly journal from starting your first development job,
* Your goals for the next week.

If it's something you'd write in a journal about your life as a coder, you can put it here.

# What Doesn't Belong Here

`#devjournal` should be exactly that: entries about your experiences. It should *not* be used for...

* Tutorials and articles that *aren't* directly related to your experiences.

* Posts primarily promoting your project. (Use `#showdev` or Listings for that.) Tell us how you did it instead!

* Questions. (Use `#help` instead.)

* *Most* discussion prompts. (Use `#discuss` instead.) See below...

# Discussions

Your post should be about you and your experiences, which generally makes it a mismatch for the `#discuss` tag.

There is one major exception...**Journal Prompts**. If you want to encourage other developers to write a `#devjournal`-style comment in response to a prompt, it may be reasonable to use both tags.

# Not To Be Confused With...

There are a few tags that may or may not *also* fit your post. Be sure to know the rules for the tags you're using, and select the right ones.

* `#beginners` is for articles geared towards newbies to programming (or at least to a language).

* `#showdev` is for showing off projects you're proud of.

* `#explainlikeimfive` is for super basic explanations of topics.

* `#career` is for anything relating to careers.

It may also be a good idea to include tags for the technologies you're using, *especially* languages and specialties.

However, since there's a limit to the number of tags you can choose, if your post fits this tag, please make `#devjournal` one of them!

# ...And, That's It!

Pretty simple, hey? As long as your post is written about *your* experiences, and what *you've* learned, `#devjournal` invites you to share your experiences with the DEV community.