edit: Thoughts on Blogging

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== Links
- Jakob Nielsen: "Write Articles, not Blog Postings"[1]
- "Canticore - A new look at blogging engines"[2]

[1]http://www.useit.com/alertbox/articles-not-blogs.html
[2]http://blog.ardekantur.com/2008/12/canticore-a-new-look-at-blogging-engines/

== Other
Steve Yegge wrote a very convincing article about "why you should write blogs"[1].  I was convinced.  I am interested in two results: a) that I might help others and b) that I might draw people to me who make me think and help me develop ideas.  Economics 101: trade is a Good Thing (tm).

[1]http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/you-should-write-blogs

Here are a few things I might blog about:
- good software development practices
- good patterns for particular languages.
- information representation, processing, etc.
  - how to display non-hierarchical data (like data connected by tags or TIME-style)
  - how to aggregate information in a useful manner
- online reputations and using trust networks to fight spam and help people find good information more quickly
- theory as it pertains to practical ideas, like requirements for forums, how to store tags, etc.
- cool software ideas

I vowed I would not start a blog unless it was on software I wrote.  This isn't just not-invented-here syndrome; I am unsatisfied with all blog software I have encountered.  Steve Yegge mentions some "things he doesn't like about blog software"[1]; the following is a combination of what he thinks and what I think:
- I want a better commenting system; Steve mentions inline comments.   Jack Slocum was one of the first to implement them in "his blog"[2].  I want something even more powerful: one should be able to comment on more than just a single block-level element.  In fact, I want [[Thoughts on Forums/125:full-blown forums]].
- I want to tie together different blog entries in a very tight fashion so that one can explore my posting landscape.  TIME itself is , or will be, quite suitable for [[Thoughts on Information Classification/126:classifying posts]].  I want [almost] every blog entry I make contribute to the web of knowledge in TIME.
- Steve mentions that he wants readers to be able to quickly determine which of his posts are most popular, a little like [[http://reddit.com/:Reddit]] and [[http://digg.com/:Digg]].  Hopefully TIME and a good forum system for comments will make this feature possible.
- Versioning is an absolute requirement.  I don't want my blog entries to be static pieces of information which atrophy and die.  If someone makes an insightful comment two months down the line, I want to respond to it and perhaps change the blog entry to reflect this newly assimilated information.  Steve gets into interesting details which will need addressing, like versioning of comments.

[1]http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/blog-or-get-off-pot.html
[2]http://www.jackslocum.com/blog/index.php

My current thoughts on the subject are that my blog will just be a view on TIME, where I select mature entries at some frequency and "publish" them.  Remember, "publish" is not a great word, as I intend to continually reshape and reform the information in TIME to reflect what I learn.  One term for this would be a "bliki"[1], although I don't think that quite describes it.  I intend the commenting system to be a central way to discuss and enhance TIME entries.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliki

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