Once upon a Blog
If you've known me for a while, you may also know this is probably the third or fourth of many incarnations of this blog. And that's without counting those rewrites that never saw the light of day, of course. I started this blog several years ago, only back then I used to write about learning SolidWorks and all things related to CAD. Those were fun times, and the blog was a great success, but like all good things, it came to an end when my interest shifted towards software development around the year 2012.
So I took down all my CAD related posts and revamped the blog, hoping to soon fill it up with tons of posts about software development and programming languages. However, it never quite took off, not like the old blog did. Not even close. It's not that my heart wasn't in software development. It's not that I stopped learning new things. That alone should've provided me with a lot to blog about, yet the blog remained neglected. As my career took off and I became more experienced in this new field, I devoted less and less time to write.
Convinced that it was Wordpress's fault, I rewrote the blog in Jekyll. Then, one more time in Hugo, after reading Brian Hogan's amazing Build websites with Hugo book, but never published it. Something still didn't feel right. In all fairness, it may just be that writing about software development is a bit intimidating for those of us that are experienced enough but not experts, and eternal learners, but not quite beginners anymore. Will someone even want to read what I write? Will they find any value in my words or my experiences? Will I get judged harshly if I ever make a mistake?
This latest reincarnation of the blog is powered by GatsbyJS and published on Github pages. It's simple and it won't win me any awards, but it feels good. Maybe it's just that it feels familiar. After all, I've been writing React components at work for the last 5+ years. And, of course, I just love the use of Graphql to query for all the data I need for my pages. It makes life so much simpler!
Whatever the reason, I'm excited for this latest reincarnation. I want to make it work for me this time. It would be awesome if someone else can find value in what I write here, but I think it's mainly for myself. A place to document those things I don't want to soon forget about. A place to share what I find interesting. A place to put a few ideas in order, and perhaps push myself to be more intentional about learning and creating new things.