About

Hi, my name is Ross. I'm a Software Engineer in the Midwest. I like to garden, build things, play video games, and make video games. Sometimes I'll mix these hobbies with each other. I've been around for pretty much the entire existence of the Internet, and let me tell you, that shit's been a ride. Seriously, they killed a goddamn gorilla.

Anyway, let's move on.

How Was This Site Built?

The old website was going to be developed using a combination of TypeScript, Vite, VanillaJS, Bootstrap, NodeJS to convert Markdown, etc., and it was a goddamn mess. It was a sad, weird attempt to reinvent the wheel, so I scrapped it.

I really didn't want to spin up a React/Vite project for a site this simple, and to be honest, React is so bloated that I don't even bother with it anymore. This new site was the result of a post made by Greg Wolanski back in 2022, refined with updated packages and programming practices. Yeah, I don't get Typescript out of the box, but I'm really liking its simplicity.

Here's what I used:

• - Eleventy: Static site generator that's excellent with page templating using language markups like Liquid and Nunjucks
• - AlpineJS: Lightweight Javascript framework that gives you reactive functionality at a fraction of React's size and complexity
• - Tailwind CSS: Utility-first CSS framework for easy styling and theming
• - Tabler Icons: Free icon set with 5800+ icons
• - PenguinUI: Standard templates for site components using Tailwind and AlpineJS

This results in a static website that's built almost instantly and only takes up 5.1MB, where 5MB of that is just from Tabler's icon fonts.