My Blogging Journey

My journey with this blog has been a volatile one! Perhaps too volatile. Let me explain.

Initially this blog was driven by my own PHP framework when I started writing back in July 2014. I then created a static site using Jekyll which I've hosted on AWS S3 and later on GitHub Pages.

After Jekyll and GitHub Pages I got tired of coding frontend and wanted to focus on writing.

So I moved on to Squarespace where I thought I could select a template and start writing. What's funny is that I felt restricted and confined within Squarespace's system after a few months. I got tired of its rigidness. I want to be in full control and be able to move any part of the website around, to anywhere I want. I want to have control of the HTTP headers, the compression of the images, sitemaps and everything else that comes with running a blog.

I got recommended to check out Tailwind UI and Tailwind CSS by an ex-colleague on X. Tailwind UI is a set of ready to use components while Tailwind CSS is a more of a utility driven CSS framework.

What I like about Tailwind UI is that I can copy the components while also customise them in any way I want. I'm not a frontend developer nor do I intend to become one. I want to stay focused on creating great high-performance backends. At the same time I want to at least be able to create a frontend to present the backends I've created.

I'm perfectly happy with copying and pasting components.

After migrating my blog posts, that originally were written in Markdown, to an MDX (Markdown mixed with React) format and setting up a Next.js blog using a template from Tailwind UI I'm now back in a position where I host a static blog on Google Cloud Platform. So much easier and fun to work with as opposed to the slow editor of Squarespace.

As an aside I completely love the way projects are structured and organised in Google Cloud Platform as opposed to Amazon Web Services. That you can access multiple projects from the same user account is amazing!

I'm a big believer in the performance of any software that I write. If it's not fast, nobody is going to use it. Specially not me. I'm happy that this setup scores a 99/100 on PageSpeed Insights (desktop) which definitely will help drive and retain traffic to this site.

Now it's a little bit more fun to write again. My goal is to be a more consistent writer. I think there are many benefits of writing. It's a way to digest new information. You get to straighten out your thoughts. Jordan Peterson said that writing is thinking informalized which made a great impression on me when I first read it.

"If you can think, and speak, and write, you are absolutely deadly. Writing is thinking formalized. You gain the ability to think by first learning to write very, very carefully. Then, when you can write effectively, you can do anything you want, and no one will stop you." - Jordan B. Peterson

My first commit to the blog repo was made on December 23, 2013. Almost 10 years ago to the day. Here's to at least another 10 years!