A history of my blog iterations. V1-V4
So I do tend to update my blog website every 2 years or sooner.
For one, it is actually quite fun to create a new blog from scratch each time, gives me a fun project to do. Also, this is such a rewarding activity, the state of web changes so frequently that unless you play catch up in your spare time, you will fall behind.
By using your company tech stack, and never investigating further, you will end up not learning new methodologies, and also learn the solutions to the problems that you are currently solving.
So here we are, a history of my blog versions:
Version 1 2019:
Screenshots:
Built with:
- Jekyll
- Github Pages
- Vanilla JS
- Bootstrap
- Jquery
Thoughts:
So this one is really bright and bold. I think I was going for a more childish cartoony look. Now looking at this, I realised I have matured a lot.
Not sure why I did not just use React, as I knew React at the time, but maybe not too confidently.
It is very simple, I guess I struggled to add much complexity at the time.
Version 2 2020:
Screenshots:
Built with:
- Sanity Headless CMS.
- Gatsby
- React
- Javascript
- CSS Modules BEM.
Thoughts:
So this one is really bold, and very much my style, or the style I was going for back in 2020. I was a really big fan of hard edges, and these sharp polygon shapes. I even designed some linux tooling, with the same sort of design back then.
I used Gatsby, although there was not much of a need for it. I remember spending a lot of time working on the hero, but then probably burned out so much to refine the rest of the app. As the rest of the app does not really feel or look complete.
It is very simple, I guess I struggled to add much complexity at the time.
Version 3 2021 :
Screenshots:
Built with:
- Typescript
- Tailwind
- Redux
- Jekyll
- NextJS
Thoughts:
I do quite like Version 3. Just doesn't feel too original or expressive of my character. Also, there is a bit too much going on, and there is not much need for so much complexity.
Finding good images for blog post covers is hard, and such a large card components for blog posts, means that the image is more important than the actual title of the blog.
The problem with complexity is that I do not want a blog site, that I would need to actively maintain a lot. I would like to just be able to create articles, and update dependencies with minimal impact.
The color scheme is also a bit too serious.