Bootstrapping my blog or, "Why does this thing look broken?"

When you land on an article on my blog, you might think that it's broken or that some critical pieces are missing. You are right! The reason is simple, really, but let me explain.

I used to blog a lot in the olden days but have since neglected it. Over time my blog has gone the way of the dodo, and the domain I used to have it on expired. I had a stint on Medium, but it did not feel like the right place for writing about the coding side of my life.

NOTE: I still write on Medium, just not about coding.

I had a couple of false starts on other platforms, but I wanted to own my own content. I knew that meant I had to maintain, run and publish my own blog on my own domain.

A while back, I had the idea of starting from absolute scratch. Build my blog, engine and all from the ground up. It went kinda OK, but in the end, I realized that instead of writing content, I was spending a lot of time reinventing the wheel. Around this time, I learned about a new framework from the folks behind React router called Remix.

I started reading about Remix and watched some videos. The ideas that influenced the framework really intrigued me, and I wanted to find a way to experiment with Remix. But what...

This was when I decided to use Remix as the basis of my blog. Fast forward a couple of weeks, and I have an elementary blog up and running. There is a lot more to do, though, and I still need to actually design this thing 😁

While going through the design and implementation phases, I wanted to get my content out there. I mean, that is the reason I decided to abandon the whole "write everything from scratch" idea in the first place. That then is the long answer to the question, "Why does this thing look broken?"

You can follow along as the blog evolves via GitHub. In the meantime, all my writing is accessible via the posts landing page. I welcome your feedback, comments, and ideas.

Kudos to all of you that embrace independent publishing, owning your own content, and stepping outside of the silos being formed on the web. Indie web for the win!