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Have a personal web site

writing.markchristian.org

91–100 of 436 posts

Re: Have a personal web site

#91
I started running a vanity domain name around 2000, for email and Web, and have a few thoughts based on that...

Hosting chronology something like: home Linux box on ADSL, 2 different shared hosters, 1U in a colo facility, back to earlier shared hoster.

For my real-name vanity domain, I went with a `.org`, since I didn't want to be a `.com` in personal life, though today I'd prefer `.net`. (The longer story behind this is that, early in dotcoms, I very quickly got tired of being at social parties of grad students, with MBA students always wanting to talk to me for startup reasons. Also, CS departments and culture were changing due to the gold rush. Going "non-profit" was an idealistic youth reaction.)

The reasons I keep the vanity domain and hosting include:

(1) I'm not signing over rights to some snooping companies to snoop on my email, nor will I implicitly endorse that practice. (IMHO, the current practice of corporate snooping on everyone's private communications is a bad for society. All this time, we techies have been shirking our responsibility to advise people about what they're signing away, and why that's an undesirable direction. I haven't done my part, but I'll try not to make it worse.)

(2) The vanity domain name gives me flexibility for where&how I host, and doesn't lock me into anyone. (Though I'll remain loyal to a hoster who's worked well, even if that means my site is not a showcase for a currently popular service. I've done novel things on AWS professionally, and I shouldn't have to prove anything with my quaint little personal site.)

(3) I've run the canonical Web pages for various niche open source projects, and there's never been an obviously good third-party permanent home for them. (I did almost move those projects to a `git`-centric third-party service, fairly recently, but then my first choice service was acquired by a very different corporate culture, and this also raised the question of how my second choice is going to change (due to competition, or presumably being courted for acquisition). Moving is a lot of trouble to go to, for a situation that might make me want to move again soon after that, so I stick with my ancient site design and hoster.)

I have mixed feelings about the Web site's dated visual design, and I think this is a consideration for anyone who makes a Web presence that will last for years... Mine has looked almost identical for ages, and now feels personally "genuine" to me, compared to better but generic modern looks. While the look stayed the same, the implementation has moved from `table`, to CSS that mimiced the `table` look, to CSS that's responsive while still respecting user's preferred font size. In parallel, there was also a move from HTML4-ish, to XHTML, to HTML5. Along the way, I dropped some unnecessary features that were flashy when I did them, like code syntax coloring (for which I rigged up Emacs into site generation).

I suppose a dated-looking site filters out job opportunities from people who insist that one's personal Web site showcase their best frontend practices. It could stand another look, at tweaks or makeover or complete rethinking, but I'd rather invest unpaid time in contributing to an open source project or techie community, than futzing around with the vanity domain.

You might keep updating your own site, but at some point you might have better things to do, so try to leave it in a style you won't mind being frozen at for years.

Re: Have a personal web site

#92

A lot of commentary around recent development on the web kind of falls into a common theme of "Wouldn't it be cool if there was a way to do WWW like it was 1997 again?" The thing that makes a personal webpage now different from a personal webpage in 1997 is this: Back then you could expect to immediately rank #1 on your own name, and you would even have a decent chance of ranking for some keywords related to content…

You make it sound like a big audience is the only thing that matters. The linked post talks about a personal website as a digital identity. Giving people a link so they can find you online is a good reason to have a website, even today.

Besides that, making your own website is rewarding in many other ways - Being creative, getting thoughts out of your head, pinning down certain arguments you tend to repeat, etc.

Re: Have a personal web site

#93

In Finland it is illegal to google for applicant's online presence, because of the possibility of judging the candidate because of misidentification. You have to have applicant's permission to that. And I am glad, because one of my name doubles isn't very representative person according to their online presence.

I have the opposite problem, I share the name with someone else working in the tech field who is academically and professionally my senior. I frequently get emails and phone calls from recruiters offering positions with a salary up to 200k more than I'm expecting at my level because they think I teach at Stanford

Did you ever try to bullshit your way into one of these positions? Obviously it's a bad idea, but I'm only half joking since it might be an interesting experiment to see how people rate and value you if their mind may have already been made up.

Re: Have a personal web site

#94
post #13

Some of the most interesting things online are people writing about things they are passionate about, for the sake of writing about them. At least in my opinion, so it’s fair to say that I agree with the author. I think it’s an equally delightful experience to journal about things though. I do it from time to time, when some subject just needs to get written down, almost as though the journaling is me thinking out lo…

Agreed. I'm a bit jealous of his (Mostly) food truck name ideas, https://writing.markchristian.org/name-ideas/ . Once, in the functional programming rabbit-hole, a coworker advocated for a hypothetical Indian food truck named Haskell's Curry. And when I was studying propositional logic I certainly wouldn't have said no to a side of De Morgan's ColesLaw.

That is an impressive list

Re: Have a personal web site

#95

A lot of commentary around recent development on the web kind of falls into a common theme of "Wouldn't it be cool if there was a way to do WWW like it was 1997 again?" The thing that makes a personal webpage now different from a personal webpage in 1997 is this: Back then you could expect to immediately rank #1 on your own name, and you would even have a decent chance of ranking for some keywords related to content…

I'd like to point out that all said is not true for small languages. I got a website in Hebrew, and due to the lack of competition I'm #1 on my name, and #1 in many keywords.

Re: Have a personal web site

#96
post #13

Some of the most interesting things online are people writing about things they are passionate about, for the sake of writing about them. At least in my opinion, so it’s fair to say that I agree with the author. I think it’s an equally delightful experience to journal about things though. I do it from time to time, when some subject just needs to get written down, almost as though the journaling is me thinking out lo…

Agreed. I'm a bit jealous of his (Mostly) food truck name ideas, https://writing.markchristian.org/name-ideas/ . Once, in the functional programming rabbit-hole, a coworker advocated for a hypothetical Indian food truck named Haskell's Curry. And when I was studying propositional logic I certainly wouldn't have said no to a side of De Morgan's ColesLaw.

[deleted]

Re: Have a personal web site

#97
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why a student should be measured differently when the developers with full-time jobs are excused with "maybe they just have a life". Some students have jobs outside of school or obligations/hobbies that take precedence over coding projects. I just think everyone should be held to the same bar, even students.

I'm not going to judge someone for having other obligations/jobs/hobbies or whatever else, but if I find a candidate with lots of great blog posts and GitHub projects/contributions in the area I'm hiring them for, I'm definitely going to factor that into my hiring decision vs someone who has none of those.

Well then you're likely missing out on good candidates - and those good candidates you're missing out on are likely to be under-represented. Parents, carers etc. - possibly very competent developers, who just have other commitments. I smell affinity bias.

Re: Have a personal web site

#98

"how to design web sites that respect the notch on iPhone X and friends" i'm a notch disrespecter

So is Microsoft and are many people, after all of his homophobic, transphobic, and racist remarks.

https://mashable.com/article/minecraft-removes-notch-referen...

https://twitter.com/Nya_Flrs/status/881522593353809920/photo...

https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/minecraft-notch-transpho...

https://www.theroot.com/minecraft-creator-goes-full-white-pr...

https://variety.com/2019/gaming/news/minecraft-creator-exclu...

Re: Have a personal web site

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why a student should be measured differently when the developers with full-time jobs are excused with "maybe they just have a life". Some students have jobs outside of school or obligations/hobbies that take precedence over coding projects. I just think everyone should be held to the same bar, even students.

Well, the developers have full time jobs programming. Students don’t. At best they get a few CS classes that provide hands on, real world programming (albeit usually outdated). I agree that there are certainly students who have time commitments which prohibit them from doing extracurriculars. But I’m not talking about a huge commitment (heh) here. 50 commits over a year is like a few weekends worth of work. If you wo…

I can't speak for where you live, but being a student is a full-time job here.

And your last statement makes no sense. If you don't expect students to work after work, then don't follow it up with the remark that you'd see them jobless.

Re: Have a personal web site

#100

I don't judge a person's technical skill through this metric (or at least I make an attempt not to), but it's rather noticeable when someone has nothing going on online. A blank GitHub, no website, no projects, etc. For an employed person, eh, whatever, maybe they just have a life. But for a student? I'll admit I get a little suspicious. I'm not saying students should have a huge roster of projects and crazy extracur…

I don't see why a student should be measured differently when the developers with full-time jobs are excused with "maybe they just have a life". Some students have jobs outside of school or obligations/hobbies that take precedence over coding projects. I just think everyone should be held to the same bar, even students.

Students don't have professional experience in the field and having a blog, projects, etc. can be a useful alternative.
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