This topic is close to my heart. I do research on the fundamentals of 2D graphics, some of it cutting edge (especially GPU techniques), others just selecting the best known techniques (for example, right now I'm doing a bit of a deep dive into robust cubic and quartic polynomial root finders, not really academically publishable, but potentially hugely useful for others working on similar problems).
I made a serious attempt to submit some of my GPU monoid work to academic conferences earlier this year, got rejected. As someone who doesn't have the "publish or perish" incentive of actually being in academia, it's really just not worth it.
I'm also doing inquiry into UI, for example architectural patterns in reactive systems. The current state of academic literature on this topic seems to be terrible (though please point out counterexamples!). Most of what's written is marketing material for UI frameworks - there's an explosion of those, especially in the JavaScript world, but very little synthesis of the core concepts. I wouldn't even attempt to try to submit an academic paper on this topic, though I think it would likely be useful to the world.
It feels like there should be a space to publish work that is not novel in an academic sense, but useful. Wikipedia is not it (their articles on cubic and quartic equations are garbage when it comes to numerical concerns), Stack Overflow is not it, academic conferences and journals are not it. I'm using my blog, generally successfully, but it feels there should be a more systematic approach.
I made a serious attempt to submit some of my GPU monoid work to academic conferences earlier this year, got rejected. As someone who doesn't have the "publish or perish" incentive of actually being in academia, it's really just not worth it.
I'm also doing inquiry into UI, for example architectural patterns in reactive systems. The current state of academic literature on this topic seems to be terrible (though please point out counterexamples!). Most of what's written is marketing material for UI frameworks - there's an explosion of those, especially in the JavaScript world, but very little synthesis of the core concepts. I wouldn't even attempt to try to submit an academic paper on this topic, though I think it would likely be useful to the world.
It feels like there should be a space to publish work that is not novel in an academic sense, but useful. Wikipedia is not it (their articles on cubic and quartic equations are garbage when it comes to numerical concerns), Stack Overflow is not it, academic conferences and journals are not it. I'm using my blog, generally successfully, but it feels there should be a more systematic approach.