Twenty Years

I happened to look at the list on the side of this blog and realized it's been twenty years since I wrote:

I'd better try out this blogging thing.

I've posted 710 times, not a huge number for that length of time, but more than a few. On average, about 35 a year, 3 per month. My most prolific year was 2009 when I averaged a post every 3 days.

Almost all of it is now irrelevant. Sometimes I think I should post more often, other times I think it's pointless and I shouldn't bother at all. But I don't regret the time I spent on it. If nothing else it often forced me to organize my thoughts and experiences and try to communicate them clearly. You could always imagine that someone would be helped by a post they found through a search engine. Of course, search engines are going downhill and increasily people rely on AI summaries, which makes blogs mere fodder for AI.

This blog has been on Google Blogger the whole 20 years. As much as I don't care for Google these days, back then they were the rising star. I can't think of another blogging service that has been around since then. It's amazing they haven't discontinued Blogger like they did Reader. One of these days I should move to a different platform.

Twenty years seems like a long time until I remember I've been programming for 50 years. As much as technology has changed, programming is really not that much different than it was 50 years ago. It's been a fascinating career. If AI replaces programmers, our generation of programmers might be the last/only to enjoy it.