Linux, Open Source & Unrelated Topics by Paul Barker

Goals and Rationale

Published:
Tags: meta

This website may evolve in other directions in the future but these are the initial goals: to act as a landing page and to allow me to keep a professional blog.

A landing page

After the recent Yocto Project Virtual Developer Day I realised I need a place to share some basic details, contact info and links to projects I'm involved in. Essentially a virtual business card to share at online events. I find when I'm left with just an email address after an event where I've met many new people that I'm often lacking context and reminders of why I have been given the email address. Hopefully by being able to share a link to this site as well as my email address I'll be able to provide some of that context to the next folks I meet.

A professional blog

I realised that this is also a good opportunity to set up a place where I can collect conference talks that I have given, written content longer than a tweet and anything else I want to share. I've found setting up a Twitter account for my professional work has been a definite benefit but the platform really lends itself to only a narrow set of interactions. Longer form content can be posted as a thread but it really doesn't feel like a smooth experience. In addition, where some writing may be relevant for a longer time period I want to ensure that it is posted on a platform which I can control so I can share it on my terms. It's also much easier to backup a git repository than a twitter feed.