I have rewritten this website a couple of times since I created it. Here is the journey so far...
Initial Days
Initially, I used Codeigniter PHP for the backend and Semantic UI for the frontend.
I was familiar with Bootstrap from my full-time job but wanted to try something new, so I picked Semantic UI.
Google Cloud had a nice free-tier for AppEngine (and they still have it), so I used that for hosting the entire website.
The low traffic on my website meant I never had to pay a penny for hosting. Hooray! 🎉
The First Rewrite
Then one day, I came to know the Semantic UI project was no longer being maintained. It had always felt like overkill for something as small as my website. I came across Bulma CSS and liked it a lot 😍. It is smaller than Bootstrap & Semantic, and simple enough to start using it quickly. I rewrote everything using BulmaCSS and deployed the first rewrite of the website.
The Second Rewrite
Although the website was running fine, I had been feeling an itch to explore other stacks/languages. I decided to try using Ruby on Rails to build the same website. I know that Jekyll would have been a much better choice for a personal static website in Ruby. But I wanted to play around with Rails and see how it goes.
I converted the website from Codeigniter to Rails within a couple of weeks, but I never launched it. It still lives on in my laptop's folders to this day.
The Third Rewrite
It was 2020 and the JamStack approach to building static websites was very popular. My full-time job had always been about building web apps and APIs, so I felt curious about this world of static website builders. I picked Gatsby this time and went around building the entire website again in React.
This time too, I did not launch the website after completing it. 🙈🙊
Pro Tip: If you're interested in exploring the world of site generators, this list on JamStack is an amazing resource!
The Fourth Rewrite
The fourth time around, I had been coming across many articles comparing Gatsby with Next.js and the State of JS surveys also showed Next.js being hugely popular and loved.
Next.js is a great framework for building not only static websites but web applications too.
So I set my eyes on moving everything into Next.js. This required much less effort because I had already converted all the pages into React while building the Gatsby version.
Once done, I finally removed the Codeigniter/PHP website. As of today, this website is powered by Next.js. *Phew* Finally! 😎💪
The Future ahead
Some decisions I have taken while rewriting this website may be questionable or unconventional.
But it's only because I have used this website to explore and play around with other stacks/frameworks.
Even today, I feel the itch to rewrite this website in Remix 💿 and move away from BulmaCSS to TailwindCSS. Remix is an awesome full stack framework that I am interested in exploring next.
But I am going to avoid rewriting this again for some time at least. Until now, I have spent a lot of time rebuilding the same website from the ground up. And writing this blog has made me realize that even more.
As far as exploring new frameworks is concerned, I have some ideas for a small web app or API that will give me a much better idea about how the framework works, rather than just building a static site.
Also I want to spend more time publishing posts rather than continue rewriting the website in different frameworks forever. After all, the real reason I created this website was to share my thoughts and my work with the world. 😅
Thank you for reading. Stay tuned for more!