Playing with words or engaging in literacy is great alongside writing code. There is no doubt that reading is good, many people agree with that, but what about writing?
What were we taught at the basic level? Given a topic, we first make an outline, then organize and fill it with words, sentences, paragraphs, and eventually an article using a structured writing method. Adding to that, there will also be a number of iterations of evaluation and revision. Think of it as the process an artist uses when sketching and layering their drawings to finalize their work. The same goes for writing code in software development. The first version is usually not the best.
Writing helps to clarify and shape messy thoughts. Messy thoughts come from many different sources. They can be generated during information exchange, reading, or events happening in your everyday life. Sometimes, things in the human brain are so complex that they cannot be easily addressed in sessions of verbal discussion. Writing or drawing on a physical object, like a blackboard, is always a super useful technique when it comes to expressing ideas and knowledge.
Writing helps to free your brain memory, making more room for processing new information. There are types of human memory, and I think they are very similar to the fundamentals of computer architecture in terms of capacity, durability, and even functionality. They span from short-term and limited capacity to long-term and extreme capacity, from processing to storage. So, when writing, words on paper create an extra memory, acting as a cache with high access and very close to your working memory. You can quickly pause and resume from the draft. Once the writing is done, it becomes permanent knowledge, ready for retrieval at any time.
Writing is a great form of communication. I believe that letting words out is sometimes not very easy or gratifying, especially in verbal form. This is because emotion and tone in verbal conversation contribute a lot to the meaning of the words. Writing gives you more time to think about word choice; good words even help to express feelings in a way that is more gentle. Written works also enable people who lived hundreds or thousands of years ago to talk to and guide you through their thoughts.
The mood is often improved when writing, regardless of whether you are writing about negative feelings from a traumatic event or a pleasant flow of imagination. Letting things out and making them visible in words helps negative feelings more likely to disappear. Expressive and clear sentences can also take you a step closer to achieving your goals when you think them through on paper, a board, or a screen. When facing words physically, you are also more likely to communicate with your inner self, which gives you a better understanding of yourself, as they jointly reflect your experiences.
Writing is a method of learning. Writing forces you to do more research and process information. Making a copy of or bookmarking others’ works in your own space helps you maintain a reference to them. It’s a good way to organize knowledge. Reading is more about consuming information. That’s fine if you already have a level of understanding of the topic and you can easily catch the ideas. Producing a related note or rewriting a piece of knowledge in your own words does even more. It gives you another chance to evaluate information and derive new insights.
Last but not least, writing improves literacy skills, as literacy is formed through the acts of reading and writing. The more you read, the more you will feel the need to write. As a result, you gradually become better at both.