I have to admit, I'm not the best at blogging, but I hope you'll find my posts interesting and informative nonetheless.
Recently, I decided to redevelop my website, which was previously built on WordPress. While WordPress is a great platform for portfolio sites and blogs, I wanted to try something new. At work, we mainly use Laravel for bespoke software solutions, and I wanted to develop a deeper understanding of the framework. So, I decided to use Laravel to rebuild my website as a way of learning new tricks in a less critical environment.
To make things more challenging, I set myself some goals for the new website:
The first two goals were relatively easy to achieve. I didn't need to set any cookies as they're mainly used for tracking or remembering user preferences. Eliminating JavaScript, on the other hand, was a bit trickier, as most basic website functionalities these days rely on it. However, I was able to overcome this challenge by using a CSS trick involving a hidden checkbox to create a mobile menu.
For the third and fourth goals, I turned to Tailwind CSS. I'd heard great things about Tailwind and had even used it at work, so I decided to give it a try for my website. It's a lightweight CSS framework packed with features and shortcuts, and it's easy to make websites responsive using it (it's mobile-first).
As for the fifth goal, a fast website, I was able to achieve this thanks to the combination of Laravel, no backend database, and hosting on a powerful server.
I'm really happy with the end result and feel that I've met all of the challenges I set for myself. But this isn't the end of my learning journey. I want to continue pushing myself and seeing what else I'm capable of producing.
If you have any feedback or ideas, please don't hesitate to get in touch using one of the social links at the bottom of my website. Thanks for reading!