Today represents an exciting moment for my digital footprint, as I officially deployed my digital garden. This project is largely inspired by Prof. Ken Bauer (External link)’s suggestion of journaling as a reflective process for growth.
A Digital Garden
Rost Glukhov had written in his own blog (External link) about the importance of growing knowledge instead of just publishing it, a vision I agree with. In a digital era where most people appear to aspire to influence on masses, authentic spaces for connection with one’s own reflection and knowledge gathering feels like a necessity towards the occupation of the digital space.
In his own blog, Glukhov stated the importance of cross-linking concepts as an organic way to continuosly learn. When I first started my blog, I did not want to explain topics from the start (there is already plenty of material online explaining topics from first principles), but my approach is to instead dive a bit deeper into why software is designed the way it is, what the tradeoffs are, and any interesting opinions and approaches that I appear to find during my research.
I get most of the inspiration, both for my blog entries and research, from the folk stories that I read or get to learn about in computer science, as well as the history of the research that have gotten our systems to where they are right now; this is because they allow us to understand the motivation that led to develop the technology we use today. This notion of explicitly sharing one’s evolving discovery of topics and research, allows oneself to reflect retrospectively about one’s own journey, and others to get to know another person or engineer not by what they already know, but by what they discover.
Static Sites are Cool
Today’s digital world also feels like a place where most people develop their own sites using dynamic frameworks such as React or even NextJS. My thesis is that this is quite unnecessary, as most of the stuff people do online for their personal sites are actually static. And this is why I decided to use a static site generator, as it allows me to have a site that renders easily and, as probably the world’s worst web developer, to curate it through the usage of markdown files.
The site generator that I use is Hugo (External link), just because it was the framework that found me while researching other people’s sites and blogs. I also wanted to take this oportunity to recommend Veronica Explain’s video (External link) on static sites.
Curating a Digital Garden
The importance of a digital garden lies in its authenticity, and the commitment of digital horticulturalists lies in the curation of their sites and material by hand.
I chose the No Fate (External link) theme developed by Oliver Obst (External link) for my corner as it resembles a magazine, which is a medium that represents the periodic publication of knowledge, but allowing enough time between numbers to curate its publications without any rush. Obst also mentions in the principles of the project the avoidance of any javascript framework, which goes in line with my vision for implementing a static site.
Please note that I plan to get the help of artificial intelligence to tweak the theme (thanks open source!) because I consider the infrastructure that makes the site a means to and end, but the material will be completely developed by myself.
Even though I am inaugurating my site with this entry, I still find it important to note that it is still under constant construction, so please be patient.
And finally, thank you for stopping by and taking your time to explore my digital garden!