Joel Spolsky wants to quit blogging

In the last Stack Overflow podcast Joel Spolsky said again that he’s going to stop blogging. He mentioned two reasons:

1. Even though most of the feedback on his blogs are positive, once in a while someone write a bad comment, which disappoints Joel.

2. Sometimes Joel may write something that might insult someone. Even though the Joel’s blogged opinion was right, it’s still an insult and it’s better not to write at all than write not  what you think.

Being a blogger and a partner in an IT company myself, I do understand what Joel is talking about.

About five years ago I wrote a short blog describing one episode from my fishing trip. Please read it: http://yakovfain.javadevelopersjournal.com/verizon_or_cingular.htm.

Back then, I was working for a large consulting company. After reading that blog my manager said, “You know, Cingular is our company’s client. The chances are slim that they’ll read your blog, but what if they do?” I pretended that I didn’t get the message…

In addition to this blog, I publish blogs at my company’s site where I behave.

But this one is my personal blog where I frankly write whatever comes to my mind. I know for sure that there are people in my company that would be happy if I’d close this blog. They are afraid that it may hurt our business.  But I also know that there are organizations that are looking for savvy and trustworthy people who say what they think and not what’s politically correct.

I want to have a place where I write what I think openly without any censorship. I know that some of my personal blogs have room for improvement, but they are snapshots of my mind at that very moment, and I ain’t gonna change them just to make them prettier or more polished.

 Over the years my skin became thick and one rude comment can’t put me in a bad mood. In the past, one of my colleagues told me that so-and-so put a bad label on one of our products by stating “The XYZ product is simply junk ”. Just like that. I just ignore this BS. I realize that there can be bugs in our OPEN SOURCE software, but I also know that our software is not junk, and I simply ignore the comments like that one.

Apparently, Joel takes these bastards way too personally. It’s a pity. I do believe that Joel is #1 IT blogger and would like to continue enjoying his essays for many years to come.The other reason why Joel is planning to stop blogging (it's just my guess) is that he is dealing with VC's now and they don't want him to blog.

On the bright side, I don’t think Joel will stop writing. It just doesn’t depends on him. Bloggers blog. They just do it, and sooner or later Joel will start blogging again. The sooner the better.

tags: joel  spolsky  

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