It has been about 10 years since I last published anything on the Web, so the obvious question is “Why?” or “Why Again?”. As many people have written before, I think the core answer is “Because I have to”. Maybe I have something interesting to say or not, but I _believe_ I have something to say that other people may find of value and so I have to contribute.

Of course this is not really a good reason — especially as publishing is an ever-easier activity. Back in 1990, you had to get some kind of editor to approve what you wrote… or you had to have a positive reaction from a news-group audience… or something that showed you had something that other people wanted to hear. But in 2008, blogs are trivial to set up and there are no editors or reviewers or anything preventing you from ‘publishing’ to some audience or non-audience. So publishing means nothing now. Sigh. But the reason remains: “I believe I have something to say that other people may find of value” and we will see where that goes. Publishing has died in its old ‘qualified excellence’ role (farewell OpAmp, Computer Literacy, Stanford Bookstore, and all the good technical publishing houses) and now anyone can publish and see where it goes.