Happy Tenth, Daring Fireball

As others have pointed out, today marks the tenth anniversary of John Gruber’s Daring Fireball. Happy Birthday DF, and congratulations to John. Helluva milestone.

I gained a lot of readers here for my coverage of John’s schism with 5by5, but I hope those of you who have been around since don’t have the impression that I have any ill will toward Gruber. Daring Fireball remains a source of inspiration to me as a writer, a reader and a publisher.

Back in January, when I redesigned and refocused the candler blog, I quoted John as a means of explaining what I’d like this site to be:

I’m never trying to paint a picture of this week in tech, I’m trying to paint the big picture; like a years long tapestry. I have to do it, though, one day at a time based on what’s going on right now.

Maybe parts of the narrative change. Maybe, I’m wrong. You have to look at the story that’s being told over the course of a year.

I read Daring Fireball every day. This is perhaps the best distillation of what it is that makes Gruber’s site so honest, enjoyable and engaging. The idea of painting a big picture, a “years long tapestry,” is actually why I keep reading most of the sites that I love.

I still read it every single day. Like many other writers, too numerous to count, I owe a lot to John for pioneering this form and style of writing.1 I would never have even considered running a site with link posts if it weren’t for Daring Fireball.

Can’t wait to see what the next decade holds for DF.


  1. Yes, pioneered. I really don’t care if linkblogging existed before DF, the guy’s a damn frontiersman as far as I’m concerned. ↩︎