Today, it’s been no less than ten years since I launched Gigi Labs as a successor to Programmer’s Ranch. The new tech blog is based on WordPress instead of Blogger, providing a somewhat better platform, most notably due to a plugin supporting proper syntax highlighting.
The past year for Gigi Labs has been a rather slow one, owing both to a focus on my Ravenloft: Strahd’s Possession Walkthrough (published last month) and a declining interest in tech writing vs other hobbies. I managed to publish six articles, including a combination of in-depth tutorials and more basic stuff:
- “Keyboard Movement in Godot“
- “Working with Maps in Go“
- “Filling Go Structs in VS Code“
- “Padding Thumbnails to Fix Aspect Ratio“
- “Go: Gin Returns Misleading Response When JSON Fails“
- “Investigating Memory Leaks in Go with pprof“
It’s funny how, three years ago, I announced that I was retiring from tech blogging, and yet I kept writing occasionally at whatever pace I felt was right. Well, I think the circumstances now are quite similar. I’m again retiring from tech blogging, and again, I’m not excluding returning to it in future.
There are a number of reasons for this. The first and most obvious thing is that we live in a chaotic world where life priorities and circumstances change, and it’s necessary to focus on the most important things and at the same time get enough rest to avoid burning out. Although I consider writing and sharing knowledge as a very important thing, I’ve already written in “10 Years of Programmer’s Ranch” that the realities of tech blogging (that it’s a lot of work for no tangible reward) make it hard to sustain, especially in the long term.
Another factor is the interest in these articles. While I don’t write primarily to grow my site’s stats, they do tell me a lot about which articles are most popular. I have observed, for instance, that there is huge interest in VS Code. It’s also pretty clear to me that the most interesting and detailed articles get little attention, whereas the more basic ones are hugely popular. I’ve also mentioned that in “10 Years of Programmer’s Ranch“, and I understand why it’s the case. However, this doesn’t really align with how and why I write. If I’m going to write a lot of basic articles to achieve popularity, then I would just be adding more of the same to the infinite pool of mediocre articles on the internet, whereas if I write higher-quality ones (as I decided I’d do in “The Sixth Anniversary“), then it’s a lot of effort to put into articles that few people will ever see.
Speaking of statistics, I’ve seen Gigi Labs’ page views drop significantly over the past year or so. I can only speculate why this happened. Perhaps it’s because my articles are gradually getting outdated, or because Google has updated its algorithm, or maybe due to people shifting more and more towards ChatGPT instead of traditional search engines. Whatever the reasons, this decline doesn’t quite inspire me to write more.
And since we mentioned ChatGPT, let’s talk about AI. There are a couple of aspects about the recent AI hype that discourage me from continuing to write. One is that I’m not keen on investing all that effort in creating high-quality content only to have some company absorb it and use it for commercial interests. On the other hand, I’m happy for those people who find ChatGPT useful to solve their day-to-day coding problems. And, assuming that ChatGPT answers arbitrary questions so well (which is not always the case), then there’s little reason for me to write tutorials on how to do specific things. One can simply ask ChatGPT instead!
I’m also really, really tired of WordPress. Sure, it was a step up from Blogger, but it’s still a slow, insecure and clunky mess. Unfortunately I haven’t yet found a better solution for syntax highlighting in articles, otherwise I’d have moved off WordPress a long time ago.
Finally, it’s also simply a matter of hobbies and where I’d rather spend my free time. I started writing about games on the web 22 years ago, gradually shifted towards tech blogging, and have now come full circle. Nowadays I find it a lot more fun to write about games than about tech.
I’m really happy with what I’ve achieved here at Gigi Labs. Realistically, I don’t think I’ll have the time or inclination to continue writing here for the foreseeable future, but things may change, as they always do. Whether I continue writing or not, I’m really happy with what I’ve built and achieved here at Gigi Labs, and the site continues to be available for those who need the articles within.
On the other hand, my Sirius Planner task planner side project has reached the end of its life, after 4 years, and will be taken down in November. Take a look if you want – it’s your last chance!
