Ten Years of Blogging

I just cannot believe it, ten years! On July 2, 2003 I wrote my first blog post and since then I have managed to write – with a few exceptions – at least one blog entry per month.

Some articles are outdated, some links are long broken and comments had to be disabled because of spammers (and Microsoft’s negligence of the blog platform). Nevertheless, it’s interesting to look back at all these years:

2003

• First post (obviously)
• Two articles about Windows Forms that turned out to be pretty popular even years later:
• Visual Inheritance – How to escape Layout Hell
• Visual Inheritance Revisited
• First announcement of GhostDoc: Coming soon… GhostDoc (foreshadowed by an article about documentation patterns).

2004

• Interesting: My Transition from Fixed to Proportional Width Fonts for Editing Source Code.
• GhostDoc wins Roy Osherove’s Visual Studio add-in coding contest, the begin of an incredible ride for many years: 1st Place for GhostDoc !!!

2005

• GhostDoc is mentioned in the book Visual Studio hacks: "Visual Studio Hacks" Book: Excerpts Online. I’m shocked/surprised/delighted to see my contributed text virtually unchanged by the lectors.
• I ask for help: GhostDoc: Looking for Testers. Of the almost two dozen people from various nations who wrote me, the handful Scandinavians turned out to be the coolest and most reliable (and that’s all I will write on the patterns that I have observed).
• GhostDoc in MSDN magazine: GhostDoc is one of "10 Must-Have Add-Ins" in MSDN Magazine

2006

• Looking for members for my new-founded .NET user group “Bonn-to-Code.Net”: .NET User Group für Bonn und Umgebung (non-English post).
• Seems like GhostDoc is kind of popular: GhostDoc wins the Audience Award at BASTA! Conference.
• The Telekom Baskets Bonn install video walls just a couple of weeks before season opening – and I fill the need for software: When the 0.1 Version of Your Software Better be Good...

2007

• GhostDoc in another book: GhostDoc in “Windows Developer Power Tools”.
• My first public talks outside my own user group: Paderborn, Leipzig, Braunschweig and at the NRW07 and BASTA! conferences.

2008

• I win another programming contest – again not because of crazy coding skills (which I don’t have), but because of nailing the absolute basics like e.g. documenting what, why and how to use it: 1st Place for EventFilter!
• My first involvement in organizing a community conference: AfterLaunch: Nur noch zwei Wochen - jetzt anmelden!
• More public talks: Koblenz, Ulm.

2009

• A long time in the making, ReSharper finally wins me over: ReSharper 4.5 – Yup, now I’m a fan.
• The first dotnet Cologne community conference: Das war die dotnet Cologne 2009.
• GhostDoc handed over to SubMain: The Future of GhostDoc. A good way to end things and a nice week in Seattle to ensure a smooth transition.

2010

• Oh the times when MIX was a great conference: Looking Back at MIX10. Shame it was first run into the ground the following year and then discontinued altogether.
• Nice: Computer Books to Read on a Lonely Island.
• Packing 300 attendee bags: dotnet Cologne 2010 – 300 ist ‘ne Menge…
• It’s the hardware, not the software: How a Firefox Issue Turned out to be a SSD Problem.

2011

• A rant: Live Coding in Presentations – Don’t Waste my Time!
• My first user group tour as a member of the INETA speaker’s bureau: Rückblick: UI/UX für Entwickler in Berlin, Leipzig und Dresden.
• Unfortunate: Sorry, Comments Have to be Closed.

2012

• I tend to rant only once a year, this time about the UI design choices in what became Visual Studio 2012: Visual Studio 11 Design Changes – What, Really?
• Another INETA user group tour: Rückblick: 5 Tage, 5 Vorträge im Zeichen von UI/UX. That was a great experience.

2013

• There’s nothing more gratifying than software that is somehow visible in “the real world”: An Example for Self-Hosting Nancy in an Application.

The future?

The future of this blog depends on two factors: The blog platform and my personal motivation.

In terms of the future of weblogs.asp.net, it’s time to start looking for an exit strategy as Microsoft doesn’t seem to invest any resources. I doubt they will switch it off without notice as long as Scott Guthrie is on the same platform, but I have to find a way (and the time) to move my content when it becomes necessary.

In terms of motivation: It’s still there. My goal remains to write at least one blog post per month as long as time permits and I as long as I have something (more or less) interesting to tell.

So let’s see if I manage another ten years…