The First Post

The plan to build this website
Published
Modified
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webdev,
building this site

Hello. My name is Calum.

Originally, back in 2023, this first post talked about my desire to create a blog site based on Angular. The following year, I updated it to talk about the transition to SvelteKit. In both of these times I was using this site as an excuse to learn about these fantastic frameworks for building Single Page Applications. However, I come to realise now in 2025 that fundamentally this is a blog site. Blog sites do not need complicated multi-page routing engines with hydration, nor do they require any of the other bells and whistles inherit in those systems. A blog site needs to be informative, easy to read, fast and get out of the way of a user trying to read it.

A meme showing a bell curve graph about the complexity of modern websites

I miss the simpler times of the internet. Growing up with my formative teenage years in the 2000's, the internet was littered with brilliant little islands of thought shared through word of mouth, web rings, msn messages and StumbleUpon. Everyone learnt how to make html pages, garish and all, through trying to one up each other on myspace. Sites were simple but maybe not so clean. An animated gif background here, a crazy colour contrast there, and many, many 88x31 buttons. Don't forget "Made for Internet Explorer" icons.

Now I have a desire to bring back that feeling. To create a little island for myself and share what I have to share. Unlike the past, I will use what I have learnt professionally to make this blog a joy to read by all. This site will focus on many things, but will do so while being very easy to read, accessible and very performant.

Big frameworks and css libraries still have their place and I will still use them where they fit; but this little site will be hand crafted at a low level using Eleventy for now. This, coupled with how far CSS and HTML have come in the last few years, will let me enjoy making for the web once again.

If you do enjoy my rambling topics of webdev, writing, 3d printing and technology, feel free to browse and share as much as you like. This site will never have adverts, let alone any sort of tracking. Feel free to reference my work but please do not copy and claim as your own. If you really like my work and wish to support me, feel free to use my Buy Me a coffee link.

Until next time.