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> what's the impulse for when someone decides to detail their work to the internet? When it comes to writing, I think the biggest factor that determines if/wha

> what's the impulse for when someone decides to detail their work to the internet? When it comes to writing, I think the biggest factor that determines if/what/and how you write is the audience you imagine. When you write, you sort of picture yourself telling the story to someone. And the way that scene plays out in your mind depends entirely on who that person is. If your mental image of the audience is "some random Internet user whose interests are different from mine", then you can't imagine them standing there patiently while you laboriously walk through all the details of your renderer. So you don't. But if you imagine an audience that is "another retro renderer enthusiast who has similar projects", then you can imagine them getting hyped up by what you're saying and gleaning bits of useful stuff from it that they can apply to their own side projects. It almost feels wrong to not write it and let them down.

deleted 5y ago
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akdas 5y ago
Adding to this, if you imagine the audience is _you_, then you might feel motivated to write the article you _wished_ you had before embarking on your project. That audience falls under your second one ("another retro renderer enthusiast who has similar projects"), but maybe is even more targeted. One advantage of this is being able to look back on previous projects in the future, as a form of documentation. That helps me pick up on a project I haven't worked on in a bit. True, you don't need to publish the documentation publicly, but since I wrote it, putting it up publicly is almost no effort now that I have a blog.
vondro 5y ago
I'd add there is a third category, "curious technology enthusiasts", that just like to read well-written article on some new topic. I personally am not "retro renderer enthusiast" nor have similar project, but this article was joy to read.
- munificent 5y ago
  That's a good audience too. You'll note that choosing this one significantly changes how you'd write: You would naturally find yourself including a lot more context and background information because you don't assume the reader has it already. Either audience choice is fine, I just think it's interesting how it impacts the resulting writing.

deleted 5y ago

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akdas 5y ago

Adding to this, if you imagine the audience is _you_, then you might feel motivated to write the article you _wished_ you had before embarking on your project. That audience falls under your second one ("another retro renderer enthusiast who has similar projects"), but maybe is even more targeted. One advantage of this is being able to look back on previous projects in the future, as a form of documentation. That helps me pick up on a project I haven't worked on in a bit. True, you don't need to publish the documentation publicly, but since I wrote it, putting it up publicly is almost no effort now that I have a blog.

vondro 5y ago

I'd add there is a third category, "curious technology enthusiasts", that just like to read well-written article on some new topic. I personally am not "retro renderer enthusiast" nor have similar project, but this article was joy to read.

munificent 5y ago
That's a good audience too. You'll note that choosing this one significantly changes how you'd write: You would naturally find yourself including a lot more context and background information because you don't assume the reader has it already. Either audience choice is fine, I just think it's interesting how it impacts the resulting writing.