What's with this blogging stuff?
I have never really given blogging the respect I now think it deserves. Why would one blog in the first place, and more importantly, who cares?
Ironically enough, I found the answer in another blog. I wish that I could share it with you, but it's part of the internal blogging system at amazon.com. The very fact that amazon.com has an internal blog is what made me take blogging more seriously in the first place. I now feel that blogging is a great way to serialize one's thoughts. I think that it is tragic that many of us have great ideas and frames of thought that go unrecorded and then forgotten in time. Be honest, you've had some good ideas. You've had some intriguing random questions that would have made excellent discussion topics, but now they're gone. Lost forever. Will blogging solve this problem? Oh hell no. I'll still lose my train of thought, and *poof*, everything will be gone forever. However, the sheer convenience of a universally ( or is that internet-ally ) accessible system of recording and filing your thoughts certainly increases the odds that you will actually do it. Heck, maybe a few people will read your blog and help you develop some cockamamie thought into a well developed idea.
That brings me to my second reason for blogging: Writing. Writing is good. All I write all day is code. mmmmmmmmmm code. After some time writing computer code and attending meetings in which the presenter has provided barebones slides, my writing level has decreased dramatically. I can't believe what people write on their powerpoint slides these days. For example: "Need know reason for revenue decrease" What kind of English is that? Would it have been terribly hard to change it to sound more elegant? Are we becoming so preoccupied with efficiency that we are willing to sacrifice the more elegant and CORRECT aspects of the language? Aye, that's the topic of another blog. Let's hope that I can craft some reasonably well written entries. Besides that point, writing is also beneficial for another reason: it helps you evaluate and analyze all the branches in your thought tree. Your brain (well, maybe not your brain, but mine for sure) has a pathetically small amount of organized short term memory. Whenever I'm trying to solve a problem, there are always multiple paths to the solution. The problem is that there are too many points for me to forget what I was doing: "Well, I could do A or B or C... if I do A, then that leads to a1 and a2... oh but a2 is bad. Ok, what if I do C.. that leads to c1 and c2... but c2 sounds familiar ... did I think of this before.. was it while I was evaluating A? Is it similar to the a1 idea??? oh man... was there a B in there somewhere.... bah, let's do C" At least when I'm writing, I can write A, B, C, and then evaluate each branch as I see fit, with 100% "recollection" of all the intermediate ideas. That's good for Johnny. Not for you, the reader. In fact, why are you still reading this paragraph? You should have skimmed to something better by now.. go go, go away!
Still here? Thanks!
That brings me to my final point about blogging. There are so many topics on which I know so little, but just enough to get me into trouble. That's where you come in. It is not a responsibility of the reader to respond to my blogs. I mean, the fact that you are here reading my drivel is quite flattering. What really excites me, however, is the prospect that perhaps something I say will encourage you to offer your knowledge and/or opinion, and then I may learn. I mean, I don't know squat about... say, the true effect Open Source software will have on my future as a programmer. If I say something like "it will kill most of the paid programming jobs, because people are getting things for free!", I'm sure that those who understand the forces of the world of software will have something to say about that idiotic statement. (or is it idiotic? hmmm in some small way, that statement is a fear of mine... but again, I digress)
At this point I would have loved to present my Citizen Kane-esque Declaration of Principles, but quite frankly I don't want to force myself to conform to some set of rules that I thought were a good idea at some earlier time. This is a random stream of thoughts coming out of my brain, which, while fairly well educated, is subject to the various emotional influences that are just part of being a human.
Ironically enough, I found the answer in another blog. I wish that I could share it with you, but it's part of the internal blogging system at amazon.com. The very fact that amazon.com has an internal blog is what made me take blogging more seriously in the first place. I now feel that blogging is a great way to serialize one's thoughts. I think that it is tragic that many of us have great ideas and frames of thought that go unrecorded and then forgotten in time. Be honest, you've had some good ideas. You've had some intriguing random questions that would have made excellent discussion topics, but now they're gone. Lost forever. Will blogging solve this problem? Oh hell no. I'll still lose my train of thought, and *poof*, everything will be gone forever. However, the sheer convenience of a universally ( or is that internet-ally ) accessible system of recording and filing your thoughts certainly increases the odds that you will actually do it. Heck, maybe a few people will read your blog and help you develop some cockamamie thought into a well developed idea.
That brings me to my second reason for blogging: Writing. Writing is good. All I write all day is code. mmmmmmmmmm code. After some time writing computer code and attending meetings in which the presenter has provided barebones slides, my writing level has decreased dramatically. I can't believe what people write on their powerpoint slides these days. For example: "Need know reason for revenue decrease" What kind of English is that? Would it have been terribly hard to change it to sound more elegant? Are we becoming so preoccupied with efficiency that we are willing to sacrifice the more elegant and CORRECT aspects of the language? Aye, that's the topic of another blog. Let's hope that I can craft some reasonably well written entries. Besides that point, writing is also beneficial for another reason: it helps you evaluate and analyze all the branches in your thought tree. Your brain (well, maybe not your brain, but mine for sure) has a pathetically small amount of organized short term memory. Whenever I'm trying to solve a problem, there are always multiple paths to the solution. The problem is that there are too many points for me to forget what I was doing: "Well, I could do A or B or C... if I do A, then that leads to a1 and a2... oh but a2 is bad. Ok, what if I do C.. that leads to c1 and c2... but c2 sounds familiar ... did I think of this before.. was it while I was evaluating A? Is it similar to the a1 idea??? oh man... was there a B in there somewhere.... bah, let's do C" At least when I'm writing, I can write A, B, C, and then evaluate each branch as I see fit, with 100% "recollection" of all the intermediate ideas. That's good for Johnny. Not for you, the reader. In fact, why are you still reading this paragraph? You should have skimmed to something better by now.. go go, go away!
Still here? Thanks!
That brings me to my final point about blogging. There are so many topics on which I know so little, but just enough to get me into trouble. That's where you come in. It is not a responsibility of the reader to respond to my blogs. I mean, the fact that you are here reading my drivel is quite flattering. What really excites me, however, is the prospect that perhaps something I say will encourage you to offer your knowledge and/or opinion, and then I may learn. I mean, I don't know squat about... say, the true effect Open Source software will have on my future as a programmer. If I say something like "it will kill most of the paid programming jobs, because people are getting things for free!", I'm sure that those who understand the forces of the world of software will have something to say about that idiotic statement. (or is it idiotic? hmmm in some small way, that statement is a fear of mine... but again, I digress)
At this point I would have loved to present my Citizen Kane-esque Declaration of Principles, but quite frankly I don't want to force myself to conform to some set of rules that I thought were a good idea at some earlier time. This is a random stream of thoughts coming out of my brain, which, while fairly well educated, is subject to the various emotional influences that are just part of being a human.
posted by Johnny @ 10:59 PM
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