This site is a digital garden. Instead of a feed of finished posts in date order, it is a collection of articles, notes, projects, and links that I keep adding to and revising over time.
Why not a blog
Blogs reward publishing. Once a post is out, it is frozen in time and slowly sinks down the page. That works for news. It works less well for ideas that keep developing.
A garden rewards tending. A note can start as a few rough sentences and grow into an article. Old pieces get updated when I learn something new. Links between pages matter more than publication dates.
How the garden is organised
- Articles are longer, more considered pieces with an argument.
- Notes are informal and unfinished, often questions I'm still working through.
- Projects are things I've built or am building.
- Stuff is a list of links to other people's work.
- Photos are exactly what they sound like.
Everything shares a set of tags, and the Garden page lets you filter across all of it at once.
Working with the door open
Publishing unfinished work is uncomfortable. It also makes the work better, because it invites correction early. I wrote about the mechanics of this in Learning in Public Without the Performance.