Why do I Blog?

I was sifting through my list of blog posts recently (I now have over thee dozen unpublished posts sitting around in various stages of completeness...), and I found and decided to complete this one.

I actually wrote this post back on March 2, 2004 as my inaugural post, but I never got around to publishing it. Yup, I had this blog account all set up way back when, but it sat idle for over one year before I actually got motivated enough to blog consistently. Now, I cannot think of a reason why I did not start sooner, but eh, times change. Here goes...

If you have ever posted in an environment like Microsoft's public news server, one subtle detail that irks me is its data retention policy. It regularly purges posts from everyone, losing many outstanding answers until someone Googles for them.

Or, have you ever dawned on a great idea, revelation, or answer that may or may not be useful to you, but you do not want the thought to disappear into oblivion?

Or, do you happen to be skilled in particular trade(s) and just want that "non-documented" domain knowledge to be persisted through time and retain an identity?

Well, these are some of the motivating factors behind why I am blogging. I want to capture as many useful and insightful thoughts that I come across, both personally and otherwise, give it context/identity, and persist it in a publicly searchable fashion such that others may benefit from it.

Along the way, I hope that people see that there are a lot of individuals at Microsoft who are passionate about technology, customers, and users... despite the critical spotlight and distorted lens that the media insists on projecting through. Software remains an art and not a science -- but we definitely try our best to do the Right Thing (TM) and make things work the best that we can.

Anyways, on to the blog!

//David