2003–12–12

Chaos Manor: an excellent blog

I was browsing through macslash which lead me to the blog of Jerry Pournelle: Chaos Manor in Perspective.

At the very top it claims to be the “Original Blog”. I don’t know about that but Pournelle, a Byte columnist, apparently has been writing almost daily in a blog format for a very long time. I’ve been reading through it for an hour or so which is rare. I don’t often stick with a web page or blog for more than 30 minutes.

The design of the blog is absolutely horrible. But the beauty of this blog is that the design seems to be an after thought or of no real consideration. What’s important here is content. This is the writing of a man trying to figure things out and it includes an email section which is just amazing. Chaos Manor shows the learning process including the many, many emails which serve as an important ingredient in that process. Actually, since there are no comments on stories I suppose the email section serves that function which many blogs incorporate into the design.

Much of the writing is unpolished and rambling but that’s because he is a writer. He doesn’t polish the blog. It’s a sounding board, a sketch pad of sorts. What’s important here is the process.

Give it a read.