First published: Oct. 29, 2023 | Permalink | RSS

Ruby standing on an autumn beach on her birthday weekend

Over the past few weeks I have released a tutorial to make the classic video game, Minesweeper, from scratch using native web tools (being HTML, CSS, and Javascript). (Check out parts 1, 2, & 3!) I was motivated to write tutorials in general to help new developers bridge the gap between what they currently know and what they need to know to get a job developing code. The other half of that motivation is to help me become a better developer by teaching.

I chose to write tutorials about native web tools because developers do need to know what the browser is actually reading and rendering and why it does what it does. Part of this is that frameworks and libraries compile down to HTML, CSS, and Javascript, so developers should be aware of what is happening 'under the hood.' I was taught to try to be aware of how the tech is working at least one or two layers down to ensure my code will behave how I want it to. The other part of that motivation has been feeling more and more that we should be delivering smaller websites to end users.

I have been reading a lot of work around permacomputing, more sustainable technology, and making the web better for people, including developers. And one of the easiest ways I can do that as a developer is to write my own code that is easier on both storage and compute power and also to encourage others to do the same. One of permacomputing's principles is to "Keep it small" since:

Small systems are more likely to have small hardware and energy requirements, as well as high understandability. They are easier to understand, manage, refactor and repurpose. -Permacomputing Principles page

There's certainly more to permacomputing and sustainability than just making things smaller, and there is also a "code golf" tradeoff where the code becomes so small that it makes it harder to understand and thus will be harder to maintain. This blog and my portfolio site in general are built as just a static webpage and the only library I'm using is JQuery, though it could be rewritten in vanilla Javascript. Granted, there are downsides to this setup: one is that I cannot tell how many people are visiting the site unless they tell me directly. For now this is fine since I am writing these for fun and practice more than relying on them for any sort of income just yet.

Along the lines of not knowing who is reading, I have no plans to track readers ever. User tracking is creepy and invasive. I personally use tools to protect my privacy as much as I can, and I recommend you do too. At some point, I will want to know how many times posts are being read (and if possible how many unique readers, if there is a non-tracking way to do that). I currently have the site and blog hosted on GitHub Pages, which is easy to use and free. But to start seeing some readership numbers, I would have to set up my own server. I would like to do this anyway to improve how I'm coding the different posts, to fulfill my own DIY desires, and to take more control over my work and the resources it uses.

In the meantime, I am reasonably happy with this site. It serves my need of having a consistent site for software projects, pixel art, and blog posts. One of my TODOs is to create a resume.html page with a list of all my past jobs and download link for the PDF. If you enjoy what I'm building here, please consider supporting my work to help me make more tutorials, blogs, pixel art, and everything.

Thank you for reading!