Is it a blog? Is it a software\/programming site? Is it collection of random junk?<\/p>\n
I’ve actually spent the last month wrestling with the idea of what I want this site to be. When I initially restarted this site I thought “ah ha! I’ll be a software site that releases kick ass tools!” But that’s not really what I want, and that’s not what I’ve been doing. Creating nice tools is part of what I want, but I like messing around and making other stuff too. So this site is really more of a creative programming outlet for me.<\/p>\n
Looking back at the past few month’s posts, it was probably a mistake for me to write about certain things and to jump around so much (this mostly refers to July). I’m still trying to get a feel for what I should and should not post in this blog. There have been a couple of times where I mentally wrote a post in my head or even wrote a post in MSWord, and then later discarded it. This site’s theme is a little fuzzy, but after giving it some thought, it would destroy this site’s pseudo-focus if I started making posts on new CDs I bought, bad dates I’ve had, or even amusing stories about former co-workers. Topics like that really belong in a personal blog, something I don’t want this to be. Personal stories should spice certain entries up, but I don’t want this to be like livejournal. I’m sure none of you care about my trip to the renaissance festival.<\/p>\n
I could make this a simple news blog for the site, but that would be a little boring. News about the site should play the most important role though. So in the end, I want to do a blog that focuses on news for the software I write but also deviates into topics I find interesting in the computer world with an occasional amusing personal anecdote. Probably not the best hook for obtaining a large audience, but I’d still blog here even if no one read it (it’d be kind of sad, but I’d still probably do it).<\/p>\n
Another thing that’s been weighing on my mind is how unrelated all the software I’m producing is. Each new release feels like it becomes its own island within the site, with its own visitors who will probably only look at the blog every once in a while and then wonder why I don’t stay more on topic.<\/p>\n
The same people who like my API spy don’t seem to be the same people who like TAAG or my color fader. I know because my visitor count temporarily went down after I released those two programs. The pattern is always that I have a dip in visits after a program is released, and then, if the program doesn’t fall into the abyss of the internet (never to be seen or downloaded again), it rebounds and finds its own audience. TAAG did this (as did the color fader – though to a lesser extent) and it’s now twice as popular as this blog. But do TAAG visitors read the blog? Who are these people? Will they understand me if I write a post on a new algorithm I thought up? Or if I explain the Javascript behind a certain feature?<\/p>\n
Probably not, but I can’t please everyone. I think I’ll write this blog with programmers in mind as the main audience. But I’ll try not to use so much jargon that it’s unreadable to those outside of that realm (sort of like how all of the September entries have been).<\/p>\n
Anyway, this post is probably more for me than for anyone who will read it. Sometimes thinking out loud helps ideas come into focus. Though hopefully by reading this you got some insight into what I want this site to be.<\/p>\n
Oh! – and lastly, I want to stress that this is a content-oriented site, not just a commentary-oriented site. I blog, but I make stuff too. Hopefully stuff that is somewhat interesting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Is it a blog? Is it a software\/programming site? Is it collection of random junk? I’ve actually spent the last month wrestling with the idea of what I want this site to be. When I initially restarted this site I thought “ah ha! I’ll be a software site that releases kick ass tools!” But that’s … Continue reading What patorjk.com is<\/span>