

Do you have a blog? And if so, why? - lambdom

Do you have a blog? And if so, why?
======
patio11
Yes.

1) Blogging is like going to the gym except for writing: if I stopped, I'd end
up an overworked, pudgy Japanese salaryman with no writing ability in English.

2) Blogging makes people say nice things about my ideas and that has always
given me the warm fuzzies.

3) My decision to start a business 3.5 years ago was heavily influenced by
accounts of success I had read from other people, and I wanted to leave
similar encouragement.

4) My blog (or rather, a half-dozen handpicked articles from it) makes a far
better case for hiring me than my resume or publicly available source code
does.

~~~
raganwald
I came here to say these exact things. Well done, and good luck!

Actually, I'd add a fifth item that is related to item 1:

5\. Writing about things helps me clarify my ideas and stop hand-waving over
important details. So writing makes me a better writer, and it also makes me a
better thinker.

~~~
saturdayplace
Related to this: Writing about something I'm not 100% familiar with forces me
to learn more about it both breadth- and depth-wise. When learning a new
topic, it is extremely helpful to write up a tutorial describing "how to" do
this new thing. If forces you to understand before codifying an attempt to
help others understand.

------
j_baker
Yes.

In my opinion, having a blog is as much about learning as it is about sharing
information with other people. There's just something about putting your
thoughts into words that helps you crystalize certain ideas that float around
in your head.

For instance, if you read most of Paul Graham's essays, you'll notice that
they probably serve more to teach him than to actually share things.

Plus, having people _read_ your thoughts serves as a good way to gauge whether
you're on the right track or not. If there's something wrong with your idea,
_believe me_ someone will let you know. This is why I sometimes submit
articles to HN: to get an idea if what I'm writing is of any interest to
hackers.

------
jriddycuz
No. I don't have a blog because my perfectionism keeps me from even starting
to write. I feel like if what I write isn't extraordinary, I have no business
putting it out there at all.

~~~
Kaizyn
How can you ever start writing something that's extraordinary if you never
start writing at all? Do you really think Mark Twain started out writing
Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer? It is a skill that requires effort to become
good at.

~~~
jriddycuz
Oh, I agree. You're absolutely right. I know that the perfect is the enemy of
the good, but just knowing that doesn't make it easy to get over the
psychological hurdle.

The same hangup keeps me from trying many of my software ideas. It's a feeling
that I'm constantly learning to fight.

------
giu
Yes.

1) I'm interested in the field of Computer Science (CS) and I like to write
articles about various things I encounter and learn in this field. I'm also
interested in other fields, but since I studied CS and work in this field,
it's the one in which I'm "up to the mark". Well, that doesn't mean that I
won't be writing articles about topics from other fields.

2) I love it when interesting discussions start around the subject an article
of mine is addressing. For me, this point is one of the most rewarding things
I get from blogging, since you can learn quite a lot of new things thanks to
it.

3) I love to write tutorials, with the hope that somebody can benefit from
them (hopefully in a good way :) I'm always happy when I read a comment from a
user, whom a tutorial has helped in some way.

4) Since I read quite a lot of articles online, I use my blog also to post
linkings to such interesting articles. I think the one or the other linking is
appreciated by the few readers I have :)

5) It helps me to improve my language skills, since I decided to write the
articles in English rather than in German. IMHO it's a good exercise.

------
simonw
Yes.

I've been running it since 2002, and every job I've had since then has come
about as a result of connections made through blog related activity. It's an
incredibly powerful professional tool.

------
jgrahamc
1\. Arrogance. All writers have some form of arrogance because they think that
what they say is worth reading.

2\. To promote my book. I hope readers of my blog will be tempted to buy The
Geek Atlas.

3\. To quote Alain de Botton: "Authors write things down so as to have to
think of them less."

4\. It helps me practice writing.

~~~
mdg
To quote you quoting Alain de Botton:

>3\. To quote Alain de Botton: "Authors write things down so as to have to
think of them less."

This is what I do when I have a lot on my mind. It is a nice exercise to flush
everything out and get closure.

Also, can I get a review copy of your book? Ill write a review on O'Reilly ..
No? ok didnt think so ...

~~~
jgrahamc
Try asking O'Reilly directly.

~~~
mdg
Is that how that works? Thanks for the tip!

~~~
zackattack
In high school ('01-05) I had a site called "rants". It was a blog read by
maybe 10 people total, including my parents. I happened to email O'Reilly to
ask about something and they noticed the blog in my sig. They invited me to
start posting reviews in exchange for free copies. I only got through two
books but it was fun! Anyway, I found my old review of Learning Perl on the
wayback machine:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20030421033045/http://rant.c99.or...](http://web.archive.org/web/20030421033045/http://rant.c99.org/review_LP.html)

------
chipsy
Yes. Because I decided that I don't have to be "a blogger." To elucidate: I
like the idea of having readers and having an audience, but the standard
format of most blogs frustrated me. I realized that what I want is to put up
good writing and good content. Most blogs stick to a targeted audience in the
hope of garnering recurring readership, and will try to do this whether or not
they have anything worthwhile to say. I don't want to be an "expert," and have
no interest in doing "regular updates" or "news." That makes blogging a chore.

But I can make a very comprehensive, "perennial" blog post on some topic. And
rather than setting out to stick to the one topic, I can just let it get
filtered by other sites. The resulting site essentially describes all my best
work.

------
dan_sim
No

1) Noise. I have opinions about things but they are just adding more noise.
The only place I write is here... and I know I shouldn't...

2) Blogging is writing about doing instead of doing (I think Jeff Atwood said
that).

3) Bloggers will do _anything_ for self-promotion and it makes me sick.

4) What a blogger writes just doesn't matter.

~~~
gacba
> 4) What a blogger writes just doesn't matter.

If that was true, you wouldn't have quoted Jeff Atwood.

------
dangrossman
Yes.

1) It attracts interesting people to contact me and offer
work/projects/partnerships.

2) I like having a written history of the evolution of my business.

3) There are people interested in checking in on what I'm up to every once in
a while that don't use social networks.

------
TomOfTTB
Sometimes I wonder :)

For me it's about community. Physicists, Biologists, Medical Doctors all have
professional journals. But for programmers and tech entrepreneurs there are
the blogs. I think we all have to realize that blogs, and places like HN, are
the conscience of the tech movement and I personally feel there's a duty in
saying something if it's not being said elsewhere.

Look for example at Anthropomorphic Global Warming. Whether you believe in it
or not you have to admit some of the stuff that's come out recently should
never have been allowed to happen. Stuff like alternative opinions (see
Richard Lindzen of MIT for example) being kept out of the science journals.
The reason that sort of thing happens in a community is because rational
scientists don't stand up to their community and say "This is wrong. I don't
agree with this guy but we should hear him out". The fact that many in the
climatology community didn't do that has set back our understanding of the
phenomenon by years if not decades

To me blogging is a way to stand up to my community when I feel mistakes are
being made or the community is going down the wrong path. That's why I do it.

------
eelinow
Several, but my main blog is my technical/professional journal.
<http://www.codedevl.com>

I update it when I feel there is something to say, not out of a need to keep
it current for activity's sake.

I write for two reasons: Firstly, to get my ideas from my head into written
form for personal reflection upon either a concept, experience or reaction to
piece of relevant content. Secondly as a means of sharing my own experience(s)
with others who might be looking for a different perspective based on someone
else's background. I have also found that my technical blog has gained me
several acquaintances, a few good friends, and considerable work. While my CV
is rather lengthy due to my fifteen years in the industry, I have found that
my blog posts offer far better insight into my thinking processes. As such, my
best and brightest works situations transpired from those companies which
found me via my writings.

------
jseliger
Yes -- two of them, one of which I chiefly write and one of which I contribute
to. The former is about books (which I like reading) and writing (which I like
doing), and it's at <http://jseliger.com> . Now I'm one of the perhaps ill-
advised souls in English grad school, so some of the material on it might
eventually make it into papers. Occasionally I find other interesting book
people too, which is an added bonus.

The other blog, Grant Writing Confidential (<http://blog.seliger.com>), is
about my family's business, and it serves a couple of purposes: 1) it signals
to clients that we actually know what we're talking about, 2) it brings in
search engine traffic we'd other wise not get, and c) we get a chance to write
about our work, which virtually no one else understands.

So in both cases, I write for a mixture of business and pleasure.

------
RyanMcGreal
I have a personal blog [1] and am the editor and a regular contributor to a
public policy blog [2].

I blog because: I love to write; I enjoy and learn a lot from the dialogue
that blogging enables; I think regular writing exposed to the scrutiny of
others makes me a better writer; I love to read what other people have written
and want to contribute my share; I like knowing that something I wrote was
valuable to someone else; I'm a bit narcissistic; it's a very effective method
of structured procrastination [3]; and it has led to a few employment
opportunities.

[1] <http://quandyfactory.com>

[2] <http://raisethehammer.org>

[3] <http://quandyfactory.com/blog/1/>

------
synnik
Yes. For apparently similar reasons to other people.

1) To write. Whether or not I am good at it or anyone reads it, I enjoy the
act of writing.

2) To record a bit of who I am, not for the internet, but for my kids, just in
case I get hit by a bus before they grow up.

------
forinti
Yes: <http://alquerubim.blogspot.com/> (in Portuguese).

1) To practice writing; 2) To develop stray ideas that keep floating around in
my head inconclusively; 3) To reminisce about 8 bit hardware and software.

------
davidw
Two, although I will never, ever call them 'blogs' because the word sounds
like something smelly and disgusting that clogs up the pipes in your house and
must be removed by an experienced professional.

<http://journal.dedasys.com> \- to talk about the occasional tech related
thing I've done that other people might find interesting. I don't write much,
because I don't think I really do all that much that is worthy of
communicating to the world at large.

<http://padovachronicles.welton.it> \- for the occasional anecdote about life
in Italy.

------
tim_church
Yes. I have a personal blog that is 1) for me to remember all the things that
I have done and 2) to share with friends and family and anyone else who might
benefit from what I have learned.

Also, this reminds me of a post from Paul Buchheit's blog awhile back: "By
sharing more of our own thoughts and lives with the world, we contribute to
the global pool of "how to live", and over time we also get contributions back
from the world. Think of it as "open source living"."

[http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2009/11/open-as-in-water-
fl...](http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2009/11/open-as-in-water-fluid-
necessary-for.html)

------
fadmmatt
Yes.[1]

I do research in programming languages, but until yesterday, I never posted
much about my research area.

I use my blog to post on topics related to courses I teach. (Mostly advanced
compilers and static analysis.)

I also post on new ideas from others that I don't have time to do original
research in, but that I find useful or interesting.

I'm also using my blog to recruit students for our Ph.D. program. It worked
pretty well for that this year.

[1] <http://matt.might.net/articles/>

------
oscardelben
Blogging for me means reaching an audience easily. I'm from Italy but I've
known a lot of awesome people in the world through blogging.

I'm also practicing English a lot, and I'm improving my writings skills every
day.

It's also an opportunity for me to learn new things and compare them with like
minded people.

I write mainly in 2 blogs, <http://oscardelben.com>, and
<http://www.freestylemind.com/>

------
boundlessdreamz
I blog for three reasons

1\. To hone my writing skills

2\. To put a solution to a problem in the public or make some knowledge public
as often when I'm researching some problem, it is in blogs that I find
solutions. This is my way of giving back

3\. I'm interested in adsense optimizations and my blog provides an
opportunity to test out my hunches.

My blog is at <http://www.manu-j.com/blog/>

------
dkarl
I write a lot, but I don't blog. The people I write for don't use RSS feeds or
routinely scan a large number of sites, and I'm not prolific enough on any one
topic to give anyone incentive to follow my blog, since I don't have any
friends that share more than one or two of my interests.

When I write about food and recipes, I send an email to three or four people I
know will be interested. When I write about a backpacking or travel
destination, it's an email to a different handful of people. When I write
about exercise, I put it on a private blog where I record my food, exercise,
and weight every day. When I write about software, I usually throw it away,
though I often find an opportunity to recycle the thoughts and language in a
discussion online or in person. When I write about a book, I share what I've
learned by talking to a friend who would be interested. Et cetera.

I've thought about putting everything on a blog and just sending links to
people when there's an entry they'd be interested in, but writing a blog that
has no consistent readership and constantly bugging people to read it just
feels pathetic for some reason.

------
njharman
Yes,

To contribute back to the community blog is part of.

As outlet of my creative thoughts.

As brainstorming/honing exercise (having to write it out really helps
explore/define an idea).

To solicit comments, criticisms, improvements to my ideas.

My blog is primarily about RPGs, the pen and paper kind,
<http://trollandflame.blogspot.com/>

------
Vivtek
Yes. I've found that pretending people are listening helps keep me focused on
moving forward on projects. And sometimes people really are listening, and
that helps even more.

My most successful blog, though, is my house blog (<http://big-old-
house.blogspot.com>) - although I suppose that's my most ambitious project to
date, too...

------
artagnon
Yes. Because:

1\. People have told me that they've found it useful. Even if I don't post
very often, I won't take it down.

2\. I get to improve my English and communication skills. Writing forces you
to express yourself clearly and succinctly, while leaving out irrelevant
details.

3\. I often use it as a platform for publishing a lot of original content, and
I'm looking for peer review. I often get useful comments.

4\. It's almost effortless for me. Most of my blog posts start off as email
replies to people seeking explanations to certain things.

5\. It's an online identity I have full control over. When someone searches
for me, my blog is what I want them to see. Not my Facebook or Twitter
profile, which can tend to get clogged up with garbage from friends.

------
allenbrunson
When I'm picking up some new technical subject, the best way to learn about it
is to google it. Most of the time, what I end up at is some blog post that
tells me more or less exactly what I want to know. So it seemed only fair that
I should try to give a little something back.

Some of my blog articles have been pretty popular. A couple of times they have
been used as answers at StackOverflow. I always get a little buzz when I am
the top google hit for some technical term.

Google rewarded me for frequent blogging by increasing my PageRank to 3. Now I
don't blog as much as I used to, and they demoted me to 2. _sadface_

shameless plug: <http://www.platinumball.net/blog/>

~~~
3pt14159
Let me be the first person to thank you. I rely on blogs like yours daily.

------
mbrubeck
Two blogs:

Technical blog where I mostly just write about my own projects and
experiments. The blog exists so I can publicize my work and other people can
find it and use it. It's also a way for people (including potential
clients/employers) to find out more about me. Maybe most importantly, writing
about my work motivates me to finish it, and forces me to make it
understandable and useable: <http://limpet.net/mbrubeck/>

And a personal journal, just for keeping in touch with my extended circle of
friends and family: <http://mbrubeck.livejournal.com/>

------
milesf
I started blogging this year as a way to overcome procrastination. The blog
software I wrote forces me to post once a week or else it finks on me.

<http://milesforrest.com>

~~~
cenazoic
Miles, I love your fink software! Any chance you'll release it?

------
jasonkester
I had two things to say(1,2), back in 2007 or so, so I started a blog. Now
I've said them, as well as a few other things, but I don't really blog all
that much these days.

Who knows, maybe I'll get inspired again one of these days...

(1) [http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/02/two-weeks-
vaca...](http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/02/two-weeks-vacation-is-
only.html)

(2) [http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2008/05/laid-off-
one-t...](http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2008/05/laid-off-one-thing-
you-absolutely-need.html)

------
motters
Mainly just for fun. I don't expect that my blog will ever be read by any
significant number of people, and neither do I try to make any money out of it
with ads. Writing down your ideas helps to clarify them sometimes.

------
brm
Turns out having a blog was the most google-friendly way to host my about me
page.

------
c_allison
Actually, I've been blog free until just recently. I'm a terribly sentimental
type of guy, but I had never realized the potential of a blog to be almost
like the "new" photo album.

Since I started with that idea, I've also realized that online identity is
becoming very, very important. So much so that people land jobs because of it.
It's a great way to break the ice, on the readers terms.

So while I feel like I'm late to the game, I have now immersed myself into
social networks. I started blogging, flickring, facebooking, tweeting,
githubbing(?), and now, buzzing.

------
ARR
This reason is kind of lazy, but: Blogs help in making an awesome site devoted
only to a particular subject and news about that subject easily. But the only
criteria is: don't let it look like a normal blog.

For a personal blog: 1) Love writing about ideas and my thoughts even though a
selected few would only read them. Makes me feel good and keeps my brain
working.

2) After school, we didn't have a proper language subject, just computer
science, maths ..., writing maintains the communication strength. Language is
important too!

------
rabidgnat
Yes-ish. I posted weekly programming essays in college, and post sporadically
now.

I had developed lots of opinions about programming, and I couldn't clearly
articulate any of them. Writing them for a broad audience forced me to adopt a
consistent view of the programming world, and helped my writing develop.

As an added bonus, the internet is overly relentless when you make a mistake.
It made me strive for a higher level of precision and quality that I wouldn't
have developed just through my college courses.

------
draegtun
There was a time when I use to keep a handwritten journal of daily work
"stuff" I did on programming, sysadmin & management. I think I got the idea
from Clifford Stoll's "The Cuckoo's Egg" and I found it to be very useful
"logging" system of my past activities :)

Anyway as you can imagine it was hard to keep this up and eventually fell by
the wayside. However I have found blogging to be a handy subset of this and
the fact it can be useful to others inspires me to keep at it.

------
dlevine
It's mostly for me, to chronicle my experiences for later reference. I find
that you start to see patterns over time, and these can be critical in putting
yourself on the right course.

Also, it improves my writing skills.

Plus, it's kind of cathartic. Starting a company is very stressful and not
very rewarding in the early stages. Writing about it helps me to blow off a
little bit of steam.

Finally, what I'm writing might be interesting/useful/comedic to others.

------
kgopal
Blogging has done one thing well to me and that's the reason I blog regularly.
It helped shape my thinking well. Often when you have an idea it can be vague
- formless. Writing it down gives it a good shape and setting it in stone.
It's also not a magazine where every fucking thing is edited, you have the
will to write whatever you want, however you want.

To summarise, discover your communicative personality and help set your ideas
in stone.

------
CodeMage
Sometimes I discover something I want to share with everyone else. Or I have
an opinion I want to air to the world. In the end, it doesn't really matter
that the world largely doesn't care because I don't promote my blog a lot,
because I post very rarely or because my posts aren't brilliant like Steve
Yegge's. I'm happy whenever there's someone who reads it, but I don't have
enough time to put into making it better than it is right now.

------
JayNeely
Yep.

1) Blogging helps build my personal brand,

2) gives me control over the first things people are seeing about me when they
search my name, and

3) gives me platform to improve my writing / coding / design / SEO / and
marketing skills.

I write about startups, marketing, and Boston entrepreneurship at:

<http://socialstrategist.com>

------
klahnako
Yes.

1) To practice my writing skill - I may be awesome at programming, but my
prose comes out too slow. I hope practice will allow me to write faster, yet
still coherently.

2) There are many people on the internet that are just plain wrong, and I must
correct them! :)

3) To leave an impression when I am gone, albeit small.

------
discolemonade
I've found that writing about something forces you to investigate all the
possible ideas and nuances around the topic in a way that you may otherwise
not do. It's a great way to really understand something. It's trained me to
think more logically. That's part of the reason I blog.Plus, it's what got me
my current job.

------
omgsean
Yes. Originally I had lofty ideas about writing interesting articles, but now
I mainly just use it as a dumping ground for solutions to annoying technical
problems to help other people who might be dealing with the same issues, or to
remind myself how I solved a problem if I run into it again.

~~~
youngian
I still do have lofty ideas about writing interesting articles on mine, but
amusingly the post that has attracted by far the most traffic is
[http://blog.iangreenleaf.com/2009/03/rsync-and-retrying-
unti...](http://blog.iangreenleaf.com/2009/03/rsync-and-retrying-until-we-get-
it.html), a simple little bash script for rsync. A good lesson on the power of
filling a niche - clearly I wasn't the only one Googling for "rsync retry".

------
wheaties
Yes, it provides an easy way of transferring ideas and scripts I'm using at
home to work without having to pass code through an overly aggressive email
filter.

Besides, as others have said people can see what quality level of code I can
produce from it.

------
GarrettGee7
YES (<http://capitalgeedesign.wordpress.com>). Because, similar to a journal,
it keeps me living right. It helps me live each day "worth blogging about".
-Garrett Gee

------
macemoneta
In addition to dangrossman's comments, I have friends and family that are
geographically distant. Blogs, and social networking in general (Facebook,
Twitter, Google Buzz), help maintain a sense of emotional closeness.

------
d0nk
I do have a blog, but I rarely update it. Occasionally I get the urge to blog
again, post regularly for a few weeks, then lose interest and stop posting for
up to a year. This has been going on for awhile now.

------
jrockway
Yes, because I like hearing myself talk. And apparently so do others.

------
AndrewDucker
Kinda. I have a journal. I use it to share links, photos, ideas and random
thoughts with my friends (and other likeminded people).

------
andrewcooke
yes, but it's not the kind of thing anyone would read regularly (almost all
traffic is from search). it's a simple way (i can "post" by sending myself an
email) for me to keep a note of interesting links and to publish technical
fixes so that they appear in google searches for others.

------
danskil
Awesome question, i guess so i can stay "hip" and "with it" its also kindof
expected for developers.

------
bozmac
To have some semblance of control over my Google results.

------
rythie
Do you write comments on Hacker News? And if so, why?

------
elmindreda
Yes, because I used to write useful things.

------
stuntgoat
Yes. I keep technical notes in the cloud.

------
steveplace
Yup. It's my business.

------
DanielBMarkham
Yes.

I blog for three reasons:

1) To make some written record of my opinions and thoughts for my progeny to
read years after I die

2) To organize my thoughts. I find that by writing about things that somewhat
confuse me, I am able to clarify what I believe and why

3) To preserve my skill at long-format(!) writing. Blog writing is different
than tweeting, or emailing. "Long format" seems a stretch, but in today's
technology arena a blog is like a novel used to be. Being able to cogently
organize a theme, a tone, a thesis, and supporting details makes me a better
communicator overall.

There are some bonus reasons: it also helps me remember easily forgotten
details of issues. It is a good way to have some lightweight web design work
to tweak every now and then.

Blogging is a good habit that is good for you. I hate to see that Facebook and
Twitter take a lot of my time away from it.

------
codysoyland
Yes. Because I am better than you.

~~~
codysoyland
Joking of course. Blogging is good for the internet. And your career.

------
zackattack
The main reason I blog is so other people can avoid having to go through some
of the struggles that I went through. Examples: posting a useful code snippet;
I will soon post a guide about how I fixed my insomnia. I soon hope to get the
courage to tackle deeper, more personal issues about depression, friendship,
identity, purpose, family, conflict, relationships. Although insomnia is
serious and personal, which is why I'm holding off on posting it... for now.
It will be written and published soon. I declare it.

------
mdg
No, I feel a lot of people my age are not experienced enough to be able to
write anything worthwhile. The result is "So I was reading this on [well-known
blog] and here is my commentary", or "This is how you do X in Y", which should
really be in the wiki for Y.

~~~
3pt14159
Not trying to be combative, but so what if they are?

My last (and widely viral) blog post was about me reacting to a blog post, but
that didn't change the fact that many people found it interesting enough to
forward on to their friends, post to Reddit, etc. I've learned so much from
the reactions to my 3 short blog posts that I don't think I'll ever be "too
busy" or "too inexperienced" to blog again in my life.

~~~
mdg
You must be the exception and congratulations on that. But surely we could all
do without another junior-level-liberal-know-it-all-cause-I-keep-up-with-
reddit/hn who will chime in on Google Buzz, Apple IPad, that dude who
neglected his Markdown project, why Flash is dead, why Flash is not dead, why
I switched to Django, why some language is the new hotness* , and beginner
JQuery tips for good measure.

* for this week

