Hello world! I previously had a website using this domain that I made before commencing full time work in software. After gaining commercial experience, I decided my personal site badly needed a facelift. I'm sure all developers have inspected their code from their early days and been amazed at the difference in quality. I'm much happier with the design and code behind this site, although I imagine this may change in a few years!
Originally, I wanted to use Lit components to build the site (a framework for building web components). This is the framework I have become intimately familiar with as a result of work. However, I hadn't used Next.js in a long time, and it had since had some major changes. Therefore, I started building out my site with Next.js and SCSS. At times, I grew frustrated with the different structures in Next.js, many of which are considered anti-pattern in Lit. However, the 'batteries included' approach to Next.js makes it an ideal choice for personal sites such as this. For larger projects, I'd much rather use Lit, given the ability for greater customisation, and it being far more lightweight (Lit simply adds syntactic sugar around native browser APIs).
On this new site, I've added support for markdown files (including mdx) to be rendered on the site, meaning I can easily publish articles about various topics. The beauty of markdown is the ability to write complex pieces of text, and mdx adds additional functionality, such as rendering components (similar to a standard webpage). This allows me to write posts using plan-text formatting syntax, whilst being able to use interactive UI elements. The portability of mdx files means that when I decide to change the structure, framework, or other aspects of this site, the articles will be transportable to the new site.
With this in mind, I'll be using this site to publish relevant personal projects, utilising mdx in addition to jupyter notebooks. I'll also be posting general commentry on matters of interest to me, such as politics, economics, and the wider technology space.
Thank you for visiting my new site, and I hope my future contributions are valuable and interesting. I'll also be adding new functionality and features in the future, so watch this space!