This website is causing me a bit of a dilemma. Because I work in a technology field, I do my best to stay on top of the latest technological advancements, new software, and profound programming concepts. Additionally, I share those things that I find interesting with anyone who would care to know about such things by posting them here. In the past, and occasionally now, I play an active role in the development and support communities for various web technologies and open standards. However, the time and effort that I put into this site goes unseen with my current and, hopefully, any future employer. Why is that? Because not all of the content here is suited for my employer or someone who might consider offering me employment in the future.
I've done my best to keep my real name off of this site. You don't see a copy of my resume here. You don't see a list of my accomplishments. You don't see any connection to the real, in the flesh, me. Well… you might, if you dig deep enough, but, I do my best to make sure that it isn't incredibly easy.
Sure, if my employer knew that this site existed, and thought that I might be the author of it, he could simply do a whois on the domain name to find that the address is the same that is stored in our human resources database. And maybe someday I'll get rid of that piece of information as well. I'm not worried so much about my current or any future employer deliberately checking to see if this particular site is owned by me. Instead, I do my best to make sure it won't come to the point where he/she would even consider that this site might be maintained by yours truly.
This secrecy, however, is part of the problem. Mark Pilgrim has written, among many other things, Dive Into Python a free online book (which I have yet to read) teaching the ins and outs of the Python programming language. Let's say, for a minute, that I had written "Dive into PHP" (which I haven't, so don't get your hopes up). It would be great to be able to state on my resume that I had done so. I would be wonderful to share with you, my faithful readers, that I have done so. However, regardless of how well I keep the name "revjim" off of the fictitious "Dive into PHP" site, connecting revjim.net in anyway to that site would be getting dangerously close to that line that I don't want to cross. It would just make it too easy to connect the REAL me to this site.
So. I've decided I have to stop hiding. I'm just not quite sure how to do it.
I have another website where I write truly personal, non-technical "journal" entries about my life. I don't update it that often mostly because I don't have any readers. Well, okay… I have three. Three whole readers. The reason I have no readers, is because I've never advertised it's existence. Sure, I ping weblogs.com and blo.gs just like any other weblog would. But that's it.
So what do I do? I have readers that come for the technical content. I have readers that come for the photography. I have readers that come for the personal content. Where do I draw the line between what should be here and what should be somewhere else? Additionally, how do I let my current readers know that there are currently two versions of this site, without linking the professional site to the personal one? Also, which site should keep the name "revjim"? If I let the professional site keep the name (and the domain) I have to run through all my archives and delete content and then still worry about cached copies in various search engines. And if I let the "personal" site keep this name then I have to establish a new identity and anything that I've done here cannot be referenced or "claimed" at the new site.
Or maybe I'm just worrying too much. Maybe I've done a decent job at keeping the content here away from being "too" personal. Or maybe having a nice mixture of personal and technical is the reason I have any readers in the first place.
What do you think?
