Hello Blog
I’ve been experimenting for a while with blogging-as-note-taking for a while now, at work, internally. And it’s great. On multiple occasions, I found myself citing the blog to co-workers rather than re-explaining a topic or re-writing mail. It’s like a really long clipboard history, except that I put some more effort in sorting out my thoughts. Oddly, more effort than in email. Perhaps I should proofread my email better. Except I write more email messages in a day than I blog in months.
But about that internal thing, it was just easier — we have sharepoint, blogging built in and ready to go, etc. However, I don’t spend any time blogging on confidential topics, and discoverability is higher on the web, so taking it external makes sense.
Topics
As I imagine most software engineers do, I write little code samples, self contained apps, to try out various ideas. Pasting the result into a blog, with notes on the how, why, and whatnot, is a useful reference, or diary of ideas. Maybe I’ll get useful feedback from peers, maybe not, but it puts the idea out there.
As well, it’s a bin for storing interesting and relevant links to other blogs, presentations, and research I find. I can put a searchable name on the bucket of links to find it later, and some thoughts or reactions. “Hmm, what did I really think the first time I saw that”.
Disclaimer?
This is not a work blog; I am not here to represent in an official capacity either my present employer, nor any past or future employer. I’m a software engineer professionally, but this is also my hobby. I’m here to experiment and to learn, and plan to use “educational value” as I see fit as the primary metric by which to moderate.
Other standard disclaimers apply, expressed and not. See Raymond’s Comment Policy for some good examples.
Last but not least, thanks for visiting!