I've been maintaining my blog (https://brooker.co.za/blog/ https://brooker.co.za/blog/) for just over a decade, and I continue to do it for a couple of reasons.

I've been maintaining my blog (https://brooker.co.za/blog/ https://brooker.co.za/blog/) for just over a decade, and I continue to do it for a couple of reasons. - I often blog about research, which has started several very interesting conversations with academics and industry researchers, and even some very fruitful collaborations. Mostly I cover systems, database, and distributed systems work. - I believe that the ability to write well is skill with great career and personal benefits (see https://brooker.co.za/blog/2022/11/08/writing.html https://brooker.co.za/blog/2022/11/08/writing.html). Writing my blog gives me practice in a kind of writing I don't do that much in my professional life. I think it's had a considerable positive impact on my writing skill overall. - It gives me a way to broadly share things I've been thinking about (e.g. https://brooker.co.za/blog/2022/04/11/simulation.html https://brooker.co.za/blog/2022/04/11/simulation.html), using at work (e.g. https://brooker.co.za/blog/2022/02/28/retries.html https://brooker.co.za/blog/2022/02/28/retries.html or https://brooker.co.za/blog/2023/01/06/erasure.html https://brooker.co.za/blog/2023/01/06/erasure.html) in a way that I find personally fulfilling and enjoyable. I got into a habit for a while of sharing this kind of thing on Twitter, but eventually found that leads to shallower conversations and shorter-lived artifacts and went back to mostly using my blog for that kind of content. I find that I genuinely enjoy teaching and sharing. I also like sharing my ideas without the overhead and formality of academic publishing (which, let's face it, is a painful process). - There are a whole lot of folks with blogs that I enjoy and admire, and want to emulate them to some extent. I think that goes beyond vanity, but also think I have limited ability to understand my own motivations, so it may just be vanity :)