Mo' On Cowtalk: 100 Entries per year; Even/Odd rule; rate me!
First things first: as you may have noticed, it is now possible to rate Blog entries here (thanks Haloscan for this update). Feel free to rate articles -- this will help me get a feel as to what works and what doesn't. Besides, it should be much quicker to click the star icon than write even a short comment.
1. Goal: 101 articles per year!
After tallying up number of entries I have written so far this year (about 80), I realized that I might be able to get total annual count to 3 digits. So just to improve odds that I actually will reach that goal, here's my public pledge: I will write more than 100 entries this year. As any good software engineer would document this, I'll add "write 101 blogs" on my TODO list. :-)
2. Limiting Fillers: Even/Odd rule
Sort of related to above: I will also do my best to follow what I call the "even/odd rule". From now on, I will try write at least half of the articles on "hard" (as opposed to soft) topics: technical subjects; coding, design, architecture, or things directly related to such topics. This is the "even" part. The rest ("softies") can be about fluffier stuff; be that related to food, music or human insanity -- that's the "odd" part. Hopefully this will balance competing goals of writing many entries (more fluff) with strive for technical relevance (approximation of quality); technical articles take longer to write, since they often entail having to write sample code or so measurements. Plus it's often more fun to write light tongue-in-cheek (or, foot in the mouth...) material; and fundamentally just keeps me off trouble.
With respect to technical entries: what makes this little bit more challenging is that I have started to write more and more on FasterXML documentation Wiki (esp. Jackson documentation -- check it out!). Nonetheless, until FasterXML gets an "official" Wiki, this will be my main recreational (and, possibly, technical) writing media (only rivalled by my drivels on mailing lists).
Anyway: I am always looking for more feedback on my writing; so beyond starting to rate entries, please continue adding comments. They have been very useful, and hopefully will continue to be in future.
