Almost every time I come to write a page, I'm tempted to digress into a complaint about some aspect of what I'm writing about. I don't think it helps too many people, and takes time away from what I should really focus on.

On the other hand, ranting seems to be important enough to me that I keep doing it. So, I need to find a better way to deal with it.

To start, I'm going to try to list my motivations for ranting and then some possible ways of dealing with the rants.

Motivations for ranting:

• To get frustrations off my chest?
• To show off? (Example: I feel somewhat "sucked in" by Linux and its hype -- it's not all it's cracked up to be. Still, I'm sticking with it -- but I want to "show off" by showing people that I see the warts. Aside: Why do I persist in trying to learn and promote Linux? I see Linux as the only competition for Microsoft, and we need the competition.)
• To get in the mood for writing? Sometimes I start writing sort of stream of consciousness style -- write a bunch of stuff even if it's crap and then start editing and refining it. Sometimes I do better (start with an outline, or a focused thought, but often enough not). There might be times when I wouldn't write anything if I didn't start with a rant. (Maybe -- I can't say I've really tried it.)

Ways of dealing with my desire to rant:

• Rant on a first draft or scribbles page, later edit those rants out, or hide them in HTML comment markers. (If I edit out the rants on TWiki I can (almost) always go back and find them in an old revision (until something happens that revisions get deleted).
• Number my rants (ike the old joke about people sitting around telling numbered jokes). (Somebody else already did this, was it Rick somebody -- "Ricks Rants?").

See AboutThesePages.

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• RandyKramer - 24 Feb 2002
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