I went looking for the date of this post because I honestly thought it was from the 1990s, when top-posting actually won. The date is more important than you'r

I went looking for the date of this post because I honestly thought it was from the 1990s, when top-posting actually won. The date is more important than you're giving it credit for. Every creative work has a context and an implicit perspective that comes from that context. This is especially true for nonfiction articles, where the date tells you things like: * Whether the author is reacting to something that just happened or whether they have the benefit of historical hindsight. * Where the article fits in the author's overall body of work (including works they haven't written yet!). * What, if any, recent events may have prompted the author to write the article. * The prevailing intellectual climate, which carries focuses and blind spots that may be very different from what we have now. * Whether the article is about something immediately useful or whether it's more likely to be of historical interest. You can already tell, for instance, that "Thoughts on Software Development (1998)" is going to be talking about very different things than "Thoughts on Software Development (2012)" or "Thoughts on Software Development (2025)". An article like "Better C Programming (2020)" probably contains some useful advice; whereas "Better C Programming (1991)" should be taken with a large grain of salt. Instead of making readers ask questions like "Why is the person talking about operating system monopolies while saying nothing about LLM model ownership?", it's easier and more helpful to just put the date at the top.