I have never been much of a writer, and I always avoided writing content because I felt my ideas were not worth sharing. At least I did until someone I worked with told me that it would be an excellent way to develop my writing skills. This has been a year filled with pushing personal boundaries and stretching my comfort zone further. Enter my new blog!!
With the launch of my portfolio site, I wanted to find a creative way of writing and to learn some new coding skills. I had never done much web development besides learning basic HTML in 2008 when I got my first computer (pictured below), a Compaq Presario v2000.
With my self-imposed constraints at the top of my mind, I had a dilemma. I could use a platform like WordPress and click and drag my way to creating something that didn’t pose a challenge or embrace something new. Being no stranger to a challenge, I chose the latter, as I felt this would call on me to blend what I had learned previously while simultaneously pushing me to learn even more. This blog also serves as a personal albatross as it will require me to remain committed to my projects. As anyone who works with multiple projects can attest, they may feel that projects can be neglected and overwhelming. I Have spent time re-learning HTML and JavaScript. Wow, does it feel like déjà vu, not quite like riding a bike, but just as exhilarating as the first time these languages began to make sense to me.
For this blog, I am using a static site generator named Jekyll. From what I can discern, it is well-loved and adored by thousands. My initial goal was to figure out how this platform worked, and It’s like nothing I have seen before. The finished product is an impressively fast website! (tested with Page Speed from google). I am also using a service called SiteLeaf to manage the publishing of changes and building the Git repo.
This is version 1.0 of this blog, and I can’t wait to see how it evolves with time and grows! I hope you enjoy this journey with me as I dust off old skillsets, acquire new ones, and begin to turnkey my mastery of new languages into an actual location to showcase my progress!
Edited by my good friend, Andrew Vedder.
