Antoine Kalmbach

Before we begin

Now that the design of the site is finished, I can finally focus on the essentials.

I’ve decided that this year I will be writing a bit more, here, and elsewhere. To that end, when it comes to this site, I’ve had to perform a simple but challenging task: lowering my standards.

Last year, I did not publish anything because I had absurd standards for content. In my mind, every blog post had to be a thoroughly researched and carefully argued piece, capable of standing the test of time.

This was a monumental mistake.

Researching something thoroughly requires an extraordinary amount of time, and writing opinionated articles that can stand the test of time requires an extraordinary amount of foresight — neither of which I yet have. I have already managed to delete one post which contained opinions I no longer agreed with. I thought its content was rubbish and I was a moron for publishing it, so my only recourse was to delete it, instead of learning from it.

My desire for more content stems from the process of gradual improvement: the more you write the better you get. I cannot do this unless I start from the very basics. I could, of course, simply write guides on how to do XYZ with $THING, but I want to tell stories, not write recipes. This doesn’t mean there won’t be any guides, however!

Another reason for wanting to write more stems from the simple funny fact that somebody reads this. Besides Google Analytics telling me so, a few weeks ago I even received a pull request for typo fixes.

So I know there’s at least one guy who actually reads every word. Disclosure: according to GA, most of the visits are “accidental redirects” (huh?), and that actual, longer visits aren’t common, but there were enough for me to extrapolate that there were, at the very least, two readers.

So, that was the background. And now comes the disclaimer, of sorts.

This site is a blog. As this site is a blog, the writings are, first and foremost, opinion pieces, not research articles, and opinions change. You may find me advocating for stricter type systems one day, and for looser the next. I will only guarantee that, at the time of writing, I will argue my points to the best of my abilities.

Longer, more in-depth stories, if ever completed, will be available under the articles category. This is to mark a distinction. To qualify as an article, the writing will a) contain properly researched writing and references b) be reviewed by somebody else. I’m currently working on something that may one day be considered something like that.

You’re welcome to snoop into the drafts folder of the GitHub repository of the site, but be warned, that stuff is obviously incomplete.

To be continued.

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