This probably doesn’t apply to nearly everyone in the target demographic, but the connection to me seems pretty clear.

I like computers. Static site generators are neat; conceptually they are clean, they ask for almost no infrastructure for your deployed site, are performant as heck, all of that.

I also have ADHD. One extra step can be the difference between a task ever getting done or not.

I also enjoy writing, and would like to do it as often as inspiration strikes.

If I look at my posting history, there are some clear periods where I happily post a lot, and then there are the other times.

• The former are periods where I am using something where I can write and publish a piece of work entirely from my phone, or a browser tab lazily opened and then closed.
• The latter are those periods where I am relying solely on an SSG, where publishing usually minimally involves creating a file, writing in it, running a server process to preview the result as I write, calling it done at some point, then running some kind of generate and upload process, as well as committing to version control.

I’ll note too that “well you can always write a draft in a note and then do the publishing work later” doesn’t help, at all — it hasn’t made anything simpler, that’s actually adding a step.

We want to reduce the cycle time as much as possible. Giving yourself aliases and shortcuts to make the necessary steps involved in publishing with SSGs closer to hand is great, but for me at least, the results speak for themselves :)

This keeps happening:

1. I read a blog post I really like; maybe I found it on Lobsters, maybe it was a link via another blog, who knows. I liked the post.
2. I read other posts on their blog. I read the about page, or look at some projects! This is a cool person!
3. I decide I’d love to keep reading their blog. I look for an RSS/Atom feed, so I can know the next time they post, and the next, and the next!
4. There is no RSS or Atom feed. There is no way to find out the next time they post, short of manually checking every so often, and that is not practicable.
5. Sad.

This happens surprisingly often — “surprisingly” because, if you don’t give your readers some way to actually be “your readers”, you kind of guarantee you will not have any readers! In which case, I mean, it’s cool that you write and all, but see point number 5 above: sad!! I want to read your posts! Please let me!

(I am writing this post partly so that I can include it in the emails I send to folks when I find out they don’t have a feed I can find. If I have sent this to you, I mean no offence, nor do I wish to put work onto you! I’d just like to share that I think your blog is neat, enough so that I felt moved to reach out to you.)

12 years today.

Imported 48 blog posts from 2010–2012 by trawling archive.org. How did 2010 Wordpress have better syntax highlighting than any blog I’ve seen today? Must remedy.

I saw so many different designs I’ve used over the years, but this one has to be my favourite: