I rebuilt my portfolio

So I rebuilt my portfolio completely. Here’s a few reasons why I feel like this time it’s better.

What was wrong with the last one

The last one I built was over 2 years ago. It was my first portfolio, purely created because everyone else had one, and I felt like I needed one too.

It was also built with a single Bento Grid layout because it was trendy at the time. But in practice? It was a mess. It was rigid, hard to make changes to, and doesn’t provide any actual insights into who am I as a developer. It was just a collection of bookmarks to my GitHub and LinkedIn profiles.

What I changed

This time, I want to make it more personal. I want to make it more about me, what I’m doing, and what I’m passionate about.

I also ditched the Bento grid layout completely. While it looks cool, I found them too limiting for dynamic content and a nightmare for accessibility. Instead, I want a space priotized for reading and writing.

Blogging is now the main focus of the portfolio. I want to share what I’m working on, what I’m learning.

The Stack

I took this opportunity to try out a few new things.

• SvelteKit — I’ve tried React, doesn’t really like the way it handles reactivity and the useEffect hook fatigue. SvelteKit brings back the basics of the web; it just made it enjoy frontend development again.
• Tailwind CSS — I love it. It saves me the mental energy of naming classes and context-switching between files.
• mdsvex — Since the focus is blogging, I needed a something robust. mdsvex lets me write in Markdown but render Svelte components inside my posts. It’s simple, powerful, and it works.

The Future

This portfolio is intended to be a place where I can share my thoughts and experiences through blogging. I’m not sure if I’ll continue to blog, or if I’ll move on to something else. But for now, I’m happy with it.