Blogging as rapid prototyping

People blog for a lot of reasons and in many styles. Except for occasional posts like this one, I rarely write short posts.  No doubt, some potential readers will find this to be a big turnoff.  I'm fine with that.  I know who I aim to serve and who I don't.  This blog isn't for people who have short attention spans or who only want bit-sized "nuggets".

In addition to writing to serve readers, I also write for my own purposes. I've discovered that blogging works best when it serves as a way to rapidly prototype ideas and methods that might later become academic papers, industry presentations, book chapters, books, software models, and such.  These final products take a lot of time and effort to produce in final form.  Blogging gives me the opportunity to get started on them, focusing on just a few ideas at a time and without the need to have everything worked out.  Plus I get to see how people react, either through page views, social media comments, blog comments, or private email.