Why do this at all?

Since the days of MySpace and Xanga, I have always admired those who had well-maintained online spaces. In recent months, I have been visiting and revisiting a number of blogs and websites that made me want to blog. It really is quite shallow – something about the design of those blogs (not to mention the content) elicited a reaction: “I want to make something like that too.”

With the year coming to a close and a few days of leave (what a difference that makes, I now realise!), I decided to jump in. Without really thinking about it, I went with Eleventy, trying to feel my way around things. I followed a few helpful guides, but my vague meanderings ended with utter confusion and frustration – there was a whole lot of implicit knowledge that I simply didn't have and didn't know I didn't have. That's entirely fair, of course, as with any craft or profession.

I then tried to use a template. But I was not satisfied (my own idiosyncrasies, not the template’s). Trying to run through all the files to make it my own was not particularly fulfilling. Coming into this project, I wanted to be able to understand (or at least have applied my mind to) every line of code. I couldn’t do this with someone else’s template, as nice as it was! I stubbornly consigned this attempt to the trash.

The next real attempt at this blog ended with a timezone – the sheer oddity YAML (remember, the time is by default in UTC!) juxtaposed against Javascript, compounded by the difference (arcane to me) between ESM and CommonJS, ultimately defeated the attempts to bricolage and Claude Code my way through. I was left drained, demoralised – I wrote in my notes that night:

Attempting to roll my own blog using Eleventy. It is a nightmare. I spent a good hour trying to get the right date format. I think I’m giving up, I don’t really have the time for this.

The reality is that the last line remains true. I don't really have time to try to build a blog from scratch (or at least, as much from scratch as possible). Certainly, I don't have any economic incentive to do so – this has nothing to do with my day job, no “conversions” from readers to clients, no way to “showcase” my skill. But the next day, when I woke up, having distanced myself from the previous night’s doldrums, I laughed, sighed, and npm init -y...

My goal is to develop (as far as possible for me) an organic, lightweight, thoughtful, and right-scaled blog. A garden with right proportions, a hand-crafted print, a tidy (but still vigorously used) workshop, a manicured (and lived-in) flat.

1. Organic: Each feature, each structure should respond to one of my needs, practices, preferences or delights. Put negatively, there should not be anything here that I have not chosen to put here for a good reason. It is a set of code that achieves something for me, that is shaped by my life as it bumps up against HTML. In another sense, this blog also tries to ground itself in the real world, by connecting the website to elements like the weather and the phases of the moon (perhaps, one day, the tides).
2. Lightweight: As far as possible, it should remain lightweight. Per Robin Sloan: “[This website] aspires to the speed and privacy of the printed page.”
3. Thoughtful: The design of the website should respect the reader and avoid design for design’s sake. It should seek to demonstrate attention and care to each element. (I am not very familiar with accessibility, so things are probably not as usable as they should be – this is one of my longer term goals.)
4. Right-scaled: The solutions it implements should be right for the scale of the blog (that is, a personal endeavour, with its corresponding limitations and freedoms).

This most recent attempt seems to have some sticking power – I’ve managed (with much help from the collective wisdom of coders past) to come to something that I am happy to work from. Here's hoping that this one lasts a bit longer.