Introducing the 2.0 version of my website!
Published on 2025-11-02
Hello there!
I have decided to redo my website using Eleventy for blogging purposes. The site should now have less unnecessary sections, handle dark mode and accent colors better, and also be much easier to manage. Developing it was a bit rough as Eleventy is pretty light when it comes to documentation, and people often recommend using starters with that static site generator (SSG), but I wanted to started from scratch for mainly two reasons: to get a better grasp of the framework, and to make the website truly my own working. That being said, I unfortunately had to rely on ChatGPT just to figure out how to get the modified date as a separate variable (note to self: maybe familiarize myself with Node.JS more), but other than that it's been mostly done from scratch.
It's a bit simple in design for now, though eventually I'd like to add more features, and I am hoping Eleventy keeps lasting long enough that it doesn't leave me second guessing whether I chose the right SSG (I originally planned to go with Jekyll, but after hearing about the Ruby Gems fiasco, I decided to look elsewhere). Eleventy seems incredibly flexible once you get the hang of most things. I also have no plans for self-hosting this site, but am considering buying a domain for it and integrating it if possible, so whenever I do need to switch hosting providers, the link should still remain consistent.
But why though?
I want to create a space for myself where I can express my thoughts in longform content without having to worry about the whims of a social media or blogging platform. While I did say that I don't have plans for self-hosting, it is indeed something I'd like to do when I am able to in the future. Creating my own website also gives me the flexibility of adding any feature I want, though there are some intentional limits I have set in place for the time-being.
No JavaScript
While the site is built with JavaScript, users won't need to download any of it. This reduces complexity of the site and makes it more accessible for people who are unable or unwilling to use it. This also means that I can't be using any bot checkers like Anubis or that stupid CloudFlare captcha thing that uncaring site owners use without considering feed readers. While have heard bad stories about AI bot scrapers, I am already using GitLab for hosting for now, and I don't think visits there get billed (I hope so). Unless GitLab secretly does so without me knowing, which uhhh.......
No outside sources
All of the sites assets are loaded within the same domain. The only time I will make use of other sites is when I hyperlinking. So no YouTube or other social media embeds, no fonts loaded from elsewhere other than this site. This prevents any third-party tracking when visiting this site.
Try to use light resources
The fonts are custom for a consistent look across platforms, but don't go above 150 kB each and images are optimized with the Eleventy image plugin. I'd like this page to load fast whether it's on a slow connection or a slow device.
That's it for now
I can't think of anything else to write at the moment. For now I will be testing if deployment on GitLab actually works.
Let me know your thoughts via e-mail at mmkthecoolest@proton.me