Welcome to the new site!

This was a ton of fun to build. I originally built my site with 11ty, and while it was cool, I wanted to give Astro a whirl.

I’ve really made an effort to make my components as generic as possible this time. All the data for my portfolio, tools, and interesting stuff are simply stored in JSON files that generic components consume during building.

Built For The Long Haul

This makes it super easy. On the old site, here’s the highlighted skills section:

<div>    
  <h1># Skills</h1>
  <p>These are a few of the things that I think I'm good at.</p>
  <div class="flex-container">
    <div class="skill-card">
      <h2>Python</h2>
      <p>
        Python is one of my favorite languages. It's the one I started with,
        too!
      </p>
    </div>
    <div class="skill-card">
      <h2>Automation</h2>
      <p>
        I have been scripting and automating for most of my career, and I absolutely love 
        making the computer do my bidding.
      </p>
    </div>

    -- snip a bunch of boring html-- 

    <div class="skill-card">
      <h2>System Administration</h2>
      <p>
        I spent the first 5 years of my career managing all sorts of systems in
        all kinds of environments.
      </p>
    </div>
</div>

Terrible.

Here’s a similar section on the new site:

import interests from "../data/interests.json";

// snip

<section class="interests">
    <BigHeader text="My Interests" />
    <AlternatingList items={interests} />
</section>

Much, much better.

Obviously, I’ve hidden some code to exaggerate my point — but I don’t have to think about any of it and I’ve kind of hidden it from myself. If I want to add a skill, I add it to the JSON file and boom, skill displayed. Or, if I want to make the skills look different, I just edit a single component.

That’s All For Now

That’s about it for the new site so far. There are still some sections that I am building out, and I really plan on making this place my personal public playground, sans child-staring weirdos.