102 lines
4.9 KiB
HTML
Executable file
102 lines
4.9 KiB
HTML
Executable file
id: tw
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title: This Website
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previous: lt
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next: srw
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date: 2021-07-05
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---
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<h2>
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This Website
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</h2>
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<p>
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For the last little while I have been working on making this rebuild of my website and it is finally at the point where everything works and it can replace my WordPress one.
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</p>
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<p>
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I am not going to say that it is finished because it certainly isn't, I don't know if it will ever be.
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I think it is going to keep evolving as my knowledge of website design increases and I discover more of my personal style.
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In its current state it has all the information of the previous one.
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</p>
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<p>
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Visually I know that this is a downgrade.
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Currently it is mostly plain text and images with very little styling, but I love it.
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It is something that I have created myself from scratch and this has a couple distinct advantages to me.
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>
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I know it inside and out.
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This means that I can have it do anything I want and have the highest level of control over it possible.
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If something is not working correctly I can fix it.
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</li>
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<li>
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It is independent.
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With no libraries or outside generators being used if support for something stops it won't affect me.
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Putting in the extra work now to program it from the ground up means that it won't ever need to be rebuilt because something is no longer supported.
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</li>
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<li>
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It is simple.
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This is not the same as easy.
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When I first made my WordPress site at the beginning of this year it took me all of a few hours to get it up and running.
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Not counting moving all the articles over and formatting them this one took weeks.
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I did not track the time it took, nor did I work a consistent amount of time each day.
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This counts learning all the html, css, javascript and php.
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It also includes learning how to set up my own local lamp stach web server at home to test it and make sure everything was working before uploading.
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</li>
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<li>
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It is fast.
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Being written with no extra complexity and with each page being a raw php file means that there is minimal information being sent and minimal extra computation before the page is ready.
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This makes the site feel much more responsive and is something that I personally appreciate.
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</li>
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<li>
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It is mine.
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It is hard to describe how differently I feel about this website compared to the previous one.
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The previous one felt like something I curated and took care of, but there was little emotional investment in the site itself.
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It worked an looked decent so I was not really interested in tweaking or improving it because of that feeling of distance.
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Now my mind is swimming with all sorts of ideas of things to try, what sort of look I want to end up with, and all sorts of other stuff.
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I want to iterate on this and improve it.
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</li>
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</ul>
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<p>
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The whole process has taught me a lot and having even a basic knowledge in these skills is very freeing.
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I now know how to make what I want web wise and get it up there.
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I think that personal websites are becoming more and more necessary these days for a few different reasons.
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Job searching is a big one.
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Being able to show your work is more important than ever and a personal website lets you share what you do completely on your own terms.
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The other one is having a space online that is yours.
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With more and more of our online interactions taking place through some companies portal it is easy to forget how much the interface can influence how we interact.
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There is also the whole issue of privace when your entire online presence is at the behest of a few companies.
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</p>
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<p>
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I want to take a minute to talk about the simplicity point that I made earlier.
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I listened to a really interesting <a href="https://youtu.be/rI8tNMsozo0">talk on simplicity</a>.
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It is programming focussed so might be a little hard to follow, but I think that the main points apply to anything.
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The more complicated someting is the more points of failure there are.
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Ther harder it is to change, and the more unforseen problems we run into.
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</p>
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<p>
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It is important to take the time to ensure that the things that we create are as simple as possible while still doing everything they need to do.
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It often makes them harder to make in the first place but the extra investment of time and energy upfront make maintaining and modifying them much simpler.
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Overall it saves much more time then it takes, but the time saved is spread out over years and is less noticeable.
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Kind of like good <a href="/blog/habits">habits</a> where the cost is now and the rewards are later.
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</p>
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<p>
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I am very happy with it so far and look forward to continually working on it and learning more about web design.
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I am going to be helping my parents with their business website in the near future which is a great application for everything I am learning here.
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</p>
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<p>
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Thanks for reading
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</p>
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