More than a year ago I started my Patreon page! It was an experiment, and I’m pleased that it has a lot of benefits. In this short blog post, I’d like to make a small summary, share my thoughts and plans for the next year.

You can also learn how to get “one year” of my extra C++ content!

What Worked  

Support  

First of all, it’s wonderful to see a growing community and extra support for my writing. Thank you all!

All Patrons have access to our small Discord server, and I hope this group will grow, exchange ideas and discuss more things this year :)

I’m thankful that I have a job in Software Development and I cannot complain about money. Yet the website, servers, email system requires some money, so it’s great that Patreon gives me financial comfort so that I don’t need to rely on ads or too many sponsored content. That’s a big relief for me.

Rhythm  

In the early months of Patreon, I was looking for a good schedule and rhythm. Experimented a lot with some options. And fortunately, after some time I noticed that writing every week works the best for me. Right now, I send a new piece every Wednesday in the evening (PL time). I can also send like two extra articles per month (so every second week usually).

All in all, each week you’ll get a “pack” with news, new blog articles and extended content.

New Website  

One visible change that comes from the support is the new site! I struggled with it for a while, but thanks to Patrons, I got this extra push, and the site is now live!

There’s still some work that has to be done, some improvements, fixes… but it works very well, and my workflow is much simpler now (just write a new piece and push it to GitHub).

Not to mention the speed of the new website! Here’s a nice comparison!

Here’s a nice summary from Google PageSpeed Insights:

The old site used more than 1.2MB per page, and now it’s around 400kb 200kb! I’m also not using any tracking, analytics or non-essential cookies - so your privacy is safe.

March 2021 Update:

Thanks to additional optimisations, it’s now 200kb! (Google search was removed!).

I still have some bugs and tasks to fix, but overall, I feel the site is much better. And I hope you like the new design as well. Of course, please let me know if you see some places where the new site could be enhanced.

July 2021 Updates:

  • search box added to the main site - uses DuckDuckGo underneath
  • server side syntax highlight
  • updated to the latest version of Hugo
  • layout, open graph, other internal improvements

New articles  

Over that last year, I managed to build a big collection of extra articles! Not to mention extra book previews, extended C++20 ref card and some other content.

Here’s the list of available articles:

  • The Balance Parentheses Interview Problem in C++20 constexpr - 23rd June 2021
  • What’s new In C++20 my presentation - 9th June 2021
  • Algorithm composition with Ranges - 26th May 2021
  • Smart Pointers Initialization Speedup in C++20 - 12th May 2021
  • Updated Smart Pointers Ref Cards - 28th April 2021
  • Unit Testing in Compiler Explorer - 14th April 2021
  • Strong Types Example - 17th March 2021
  • Utilities And Projections - C++17/C++20 - 3rd March 2021.
  • Trie Implementation part 4, Performance - 17th February 2021.
  • Trie Implementation part 3 - 9th December 2020.
  • Trie Implementation part 2 - 25th November 2020.

The full list can be found at: Premium Content/Articles.

Preview:

Have a look at those public posts.

And my latest experiments with Trie Implementation:

By clicking on those above links you’ll see a Patreon post, and at the bottom, there’s a link to PDF with an article. It’s public and free.

What didn’t work  

  • In December 2019 I imagined writing monthly reports, something like 8…10 pages of summaries from articles and news. This worked for a few months, but it appeared that it was too much work. And I had to cancel it.
  • In some cases I had to skip a week
  • Still looking for ways to improve my backlog of articles and the speed of writing new content.

Plans  

  • Return and keep the weekly schedule on the blog - Near the end of last year I struggled with my “backlog” of new articles, but I hope to find some new energy for more posts :)
  • Write more about C++20 this year.
  • Grow my Patreon Community.
  • Improve the C++ Stories website
  • The print version of C++ Lambda Stories) - I have some early print copies, so it looks like it will be available at Amazon in February :)
  • Educative courses - I have a couple of ideas and some of them “in early” production.

Join Us  

Please look at extra articles, benefits (for example C++ Lambda Story ebook for free) and if you like my work support my website.

Or see all extras at this separate page: Premium Content! - C++ Stories

Here’s the summary of available plans:

Available plans