That tells me that the traffic is not coming from the older established sites I know, like HackerNews, but is either fake traffic or newer sites that I haven’t seen. It would be nice to know which is correct. Are people actually reading these posts?
So, if you are reading this, I’d really appreciate you taking a moment to comment. Anonymous is fine, and since my comments are screened before they are published, feel free to say ‘do not publish’ if you want. A ping is good; mentioning the source helps.
A long time ago, I briefly dreamed of monetizing my writing, but as I realized that the way to do that is to effectively change what I am saying, I decided not to do that.
I’ve always had to be careful not to upset any of my current employers, but beyond that, I write what I know, either from firsthand experience or from conversations with others.
Because of that, and my limited writing style, it’s never been a popular blog, but I still feel, after decades, that I want to get what I understand down somewhere. Maybe people read it, maybe not. It’s okay.
The software development industry varies hugely, so not surprisingly, plenty of other people have had very different experiences in their careers, but I also do suspect that there is way too much propaganda out there that is deliberately trying to mislead people. It’s an immature, messy and often ugly industry.
With all that in mind, if you could take a moment to say ‘Hi,’ at least I’ll know if you really exist or are just a figment of the web’s imagination.
UPDATE: Ok, I got a few responses, which is great. Thanks! Seems like at least some of the traffic is RSS and Atom, which doesn't show up in the stats. It might be those views where I do get a country and browser type, but that still leaves a great deal of traffic as Other. I guess I'll never know if those are real or not.
If anyone has suggestions about future topics, that would be great too. I feel like I am getting too repetitive in my old age :-)
hi, I came via my RSS reader
ReplyDeleteThanks, It’s nice to see RSS making a come back.
DeleteHi. Subscribed to your Atom feed.
ReplyDeleteThanks, another great technology. Is it picking up my RSS from FeedBurner, or are you getting it from somewhere else?
DeleteAlso RSS feed, can't remember where I originally found it.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I'm seeing a trend here :-)
DeleteHi! Subscribed to your FeedBurner RSS via Feedly for many years.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I haven't logged into Feedly for many years, I guess I forgot about its existence :-)
DeleteI learned of your blog from a coworker about fifteen years ago.
ReplyDeleteMy posts were crazy long back then. I hope I’ve learned to write a little better now :-)
DeleteWhat about your book? The link don't work...
ReplyDeleteI think the ebook version is out there in a bunch of stores. The original is at Lulu, but I wouldn’t buy it if I were you, it’s pretty badly written and riddled with grammar mistakes. It was twenty years ago, I could barely write. It’s only interesting bit is that my view of software hasn’t changed very much since then. The tech swaps every five years, the fundamentals stay for a lot longer.
DeleteThanks. Only a question: Can everything be encoded? For example: numbers that are neither integers nor decimals...
DeleteThere are non-computable numbers out there, so I think the answer is no. But there are branches of computer science like symbolic algebra and proof solving that have alternative representations. Also approximations are often used. I think there are far more boundaries on formal representations than most people realize.
DeleteThanks. About your first answer on "fundamentals stay", do you think that the solution of certain problems (halting or P vs NP) would change your programmer work?
ReplyDeleteI’ve bounced up against some of the boundaries, mostly when optimizing code or building engines, but most of the code I wrote was less interesting. The biggest problems were data modelling, time, and just keeping it all organized as it grew rapidly.
ReplyDeleteAny thoughts about re-writing and re-releasing your book? I would buy a copy!
ReplyDeleteI haven’t really thought about it, but maybe someday I’ll combine the blog and the earlier writings. It’s just that since I’m not well known, it would have pretty low traction.
ReplyDelete