Blog Question Challenge

I found the Blog Question Challenge via an article in my feed reader, and I thought it would be an interesting thing to write about. So, here we go!

1. Why did you make the blog in the first place?

As a self-taught programmer, I have always learned by doing small projects on various things I found interesting at different points of time. I wanted to share my experience of and learnings from some of these with the world. So I turned to blogging about programming, to start with. Then I gradually started writing about other things too.

2. Why did you choose the blogging software/platform/tool you use?

I wanted to customize my blog to my heart’s content, and I couldn’t find anything that completely satisfied me. So I wrote it myself, a Static Site Generator written in Haskell. I first used the Hakyll framework to write it, and then couple of years later, I rewrote it to be even more customizable using the Shake library.

3. Have you blogged on other platforms before?

Back in the day, I tried using Blogger, but that was a failure. I tried Tumblr as well, but it couldn’t hold my attention either. My last failed try was using Octopress. Thankfully, the next one (the Hakyll SSG) worked out for me.

4. Do you write your posts directly in the editor or in another software?

If a post is text-heavy, I start by writing it in Bear, which I then export to my code editor as Markdown to given final touches. If the post is code-heavy, I write it directly in my code editor.

These days I use Zed and Micro as my code editors. I have used VS Code in the past.

5. When do you feel most inspired to write?

Strangely, most of my writing inspiration come as side-quests (AKA Yak Shaving) while working on my personal projects.

Sometimes I find an interesting article on Internet, which I read through and promptly forget about. Then many months or even years later, something else brings those interesting bits back into my head by the way of some connections. Then if I feel something novel stirring in my brain, I write about it.

6. Do you publish immediately after writing or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?

It varies a lot. I’ve had ideas that I wrote posts about within a day (like this post). I’ve also had posts sitting in my drafts for years before I was able to finish them. Usually short posts sit for a day to a week in my drafts, while the long ones take six months to as long as four years.

For long and more involved posts, I take a day’s break after I’m done writing them. Then I go over it with a fresh mind to edit it and make it more clear and crisp. I generally publish a post within 24 hours of finishing and editing it.

7. Your favorite post on your blog?

I like all the posts on my blog because they all are my labours of love. But if I had to choose one, I’d choose JSON Parsing from Scratch in Haskell.

8 Any future plans for your blog?

There are many thing I want to do with my blog, but I haven’t found the time yet:

1. Integrate my short notes and long posts into my main website.
2. Redesign my website to make it cleaner, crisper, more minimal.
3. Refactor the website code to make it easier to work with.
4. Add support for more media like charts, interactive code blocks, etc.
5. Add a linkblog section.

These are my answers to the Blog Question Challenge. If you write a blog, maybe you should answer them too.

Like, share, or comment on this post on Mastodon.