It's never enough.

I've been hacking away at the CuteNews code (that runs this blog and the other news on this page), and got some more things to my liking:

• URLs reduced down to a single query parameter, which means that Google should index this lot now.

• Hacked the archiving functions, so I can now safely archive old posts and their permalinks won't break

• Improved my RSS feeds (again!), this time to include the <guid>. Which means that aggregators will again be confused, (sorry to those who are subscribed, I noticed in my logs there are a handful), but now it's the last time, as long as the aggregators respect <guid>. I should even be able to edit the post title/body and it won't appear twice.

But it's not enough. I added CuteNews to this site just for a few pieces of news I might need to post. I started my blog because, having already got a news system, it was very little extra work. But it just keeps growing... The next thing I need if I really want to be a blogger, is pingpback. Using other people's code is often almost impossible (often it's so badly documented it's incomprehensible; or organised such that it's un-reusable (even if it's OO)). So I'm going to end up implementing (at least half of) this myself. And then I'll decide that I need trackback as well! And then, I could really do with making it XHTML, and improving accessibility...

You can never get enough hits either. A couple of days ago I posted a link on dot.kde.org to a tutorial in my new articles section. dot.kde.org is a popular site, and according to my logs it must have generated a thousand hits already, which is more than the rest of the site got in the past six months, and the visitors who bothered to rate the article were impressed, but it's not enough, I want more.

But why? The first one is easily explainable - I've got not enough to do, I'm an incorrigible tinkering (that is, someone who loves to tweak and mess around with things, rather than steal them), and I'm a programmer - conclusion: I'm going to end up writing myself what I could have downloaded in the first place, because it's more fun!

The second one is more disturbing. Although there is some selflessness in the articles I've put up (sharing knowledge, helping others, writing it so that most newbies would still follow etc), and blogs have a helpful social function, I have to admit that a desire to be noticed, to be recognised, and, above all, to be applauded forms a large part of the motivation here. The number of websites, bloggers, and articles on "How to get quadrillions of hits to your blog" make me realise I am in good company - or should I say numerous company. But that's not much of a comfort when my energies really ought to be channelled elsewhere, not least in a desperate concern for the recognition and glory of the Lord Jesus. Hmm.