Tech Stack 101
- Astro. This web site is built using Astro. It’s a JavaScript based framework/platform (using a Go compiler transpiler). I tried a few other options for both a static and dynamic hosted web blog, and decided Astro was the best fit for me. It is server-side generated by default, but it’s easy to transition to dynamic content and server side functionality. My web site is likely using about 10% of the full capabilities of Astro right now.
- astro-pagefind. This is a plug-in for Astro that uses Pagefind to do entirely client-side full text searching of the content on a web site. It’s slick and fast and builds the index during the web site build. I made a few simple modifications to the Search component to adapt it to the needs of my web site.
- reading-time. An uncomplicated way of generating a rough estimate for how long a page may take to read.
- Cloudflare. This web site is currently hosted on a free tier of Cloudflare Pages. For $0, with free cloud builds, it was hard to argue the price was too much. I may eventually move the web site to another host, but for now, it was a low-pain way of getting things going and required little to no-tinkering just to get HTML served up. As my web site is entirely static right now, the web site doesn’t need super powers to be hosted.
- Downside: I don’t find Cloudflare’s administrative UI to be particularly easy to understand. It’s partly due to their terminology and product names, but also because it’s organized in a way that doesn’t match my mental model of how my account and associated products should work.
- Github. There’s a nice automation that when I do a commit to Github, it triggers a build on Cloudflare and a minute or less later, the update I’d pushed to the repository is available world-wide on the Cloudflare network.
- Cartridge. It’s a 80’s inspired video-game/retro inspired typeface I use for the larger headings on this site (generally heading level 1s). I bought a desktop+web license — I really like how straightforward Dan’s licensing is for the typefaces his design studio creates. Recommended.
- Visual Studio Code. I use Windows most of the time for a desktop OS and Visual Studio Code along with the monster marketplace for extensions is a combo that is hard to beat, especially for no cost. I have installed an unhealthy number of extensions, but they all serve a purpose and I’ve actively used them. I wouldn’t complain if Code was faster, but that seems unlikely given the tech stack that powers Code.
- Stripe. I use Stripe to accept payments and use a number of their “zero-code” options for managing products. Soon I plan on integrating more of their products and using their APIs for some server-side rendered content.
Bonus
- Iconify.Design. This is a very handy web site for finding small icons as SVGs. It has great support for searching and copying the SVG to the clipboard in a variety of formats if needed.