2024-02-19

Thoughts on why I built this site with React and Next.js vs another stack or plain ole HTML/CSS.

I'm used to React from my day job so writing in another framework didn't really make sense to me. I could have spent some time to actually learn Vue.js or Svelte but that would have taken time away from actually doing the thing.


Getting stuff done vs Just thinking about doing it.

TL;DR Better to have something than just think about it. Even if whatyou've made is crappy you still made it.

This is something I've historically struggled with. I came to the conclusion that I needed to at least write stuff down in my senior year of college. It's helped, but I still haven't really produced much of what I wanted to produce. Part of that is because of perfectionist tendencies that I need to learn how to relax in specific contexts (I should still keep them when writing critical code though). Part of it is organization. I've been putting things down in too many places. Physical journals, Notion, text files, git repos, two different note apps. I'm still working on this part but I think that trying to do more on my laptop, using folders, and aiming for the simplest file types will help.

I went to paper as a reaction to using technology too much. I've found a better balance since that point and I believe that replacing smartphone use with laptop use will suffice. Smartphones, particularly iOS devices, are too limiting when it comes to creation. As a result, I personally tend to fall back into consumption.