In this post, I will talk about:

• Why am I even doing this?
• How I built this
• Why I chose Gatsby
• What's the end goal?

Why am I even doing this?

Is this the start of something beautiful? I hope so. Anyways, welcome to my space!

I built and am continuing to build this application out with the intention of having blog space be my artistic virtual playground.

Potential topics I will write about or even showcase:

• Javascript topics and concepts
• Software engineering and more computer sciencey topics
• Specific mathematical theorems of interest
• Philosophy and micro/macro psychology
• Gaming and tech
• Food
• Culture and memes because why not?
• Any other future topics that I might grow into and have interest towards

Mostly, this will be used as a training ground. I genuinely don't expect anyone to read this at all. There are over a thousand blogs more helpful and legitimate than mine with fewer blabber-mouthed, non-contributing mumbo jumbo. There's a chance, if not a guaranteed certainty, I might never write about a certain topic above because talk is CHEAP. In the past and perhaps still is, my writing style was considered tasteless, biased, and even downright stagnant.

It's even possible that, you as the reader, may consider being offended at one point or asking yourself "Why am I being involved in this so much?". However if you're daring enough to read this far, I thank you from the bottom of my heart to taking the time to understand who I am and where I come from. I'll stop bashing myself from here on out, but I'll keep engaging you and calling you out from time to time. It's just my style 😉

How I built this

Single Page App built with Gatsby.js driven by GraphQL querying from Markdown files. I followed Gatsby's tutorial listed in its docs. Here's the github link if you didn't already find it in the About page: https://github.com/klammm/all-things-random

Why I chose Gatsby

I started this application with the idea of trying out Gatsby.js after first hearing about it from React Status's weekly React newsletter. Gatsby is known for generating static Single Page Application(SPA) built in with the latest web trends such as modern frameworks(React and Webpack), scalable data integration(CMS, SaaS, APIs, file system, etc), static asset generator for progressive web app capabilities, and many more developer-friendly addons. If you're wondering, I did just take that whole sentence from the About page of Gatsby's site.

Spoiler alert: Gatsby is really fast and really fast to get started with.

The entire application was quick to get up and running after learning about the Gatsby API. To start, two files were set: gatsby-config.js and gatsby-node.js. The Gatsby Config API was used for general application-wide settings such as other gatsby dependencies(called plugins) and site meta data. The Gatsby Node API was used to generate pages based on the GraphQL query.

The only challenging part of getting started is having to learn slugs and Gatsby's data flow. I could relate it to an "Ignorance is Bliss" matrix-like relationship. Most of the diligently chosen configuration, precisely crafted development, and in general hard work had already been done to ensure morons like us can't screw it up. "Here's all you really need. You have to follow our data flow like this and all will be good." So if you like coding in the matrix knowing that the real world around you is burning while you're in this heavenly bliss state of coding, Gatsby is the one for you.

Anyways, the tutorial was beginner-friendly assuming no coding experience. The development velocity was fast and user experience is snappy, in a good way.

What really sold Gatsby for me was its functionality with routing. I've had some painful experiences of implementing routing with react-router and having to make a decision of what layout to render. A lot of that decision-making is taken out(for better or worse) when using Gatsby's Link API.

What's the end goal?

Having to do something and work towards something without literally going crazy. I'm not afraid to say that I have not found or even cultivated a passion. I'm hoping with this that I have a slightly better idea of what I like to write about, who I am, and what I can do with this life of mine. Also it'd be nice to earn money for this 🙄

Conclusion

if you've made it this far, thanks for reading my first post. This is totally a work in progress of unapologetically testing out new technologies and talking about random crap. Please feel free to leave any comments in my Github issues or hit me up on Twitter. You'll find how to contact me through the about page.

A complete list of changes can be found here.