The Birth of My Developer Blog

After many months filled with anticipation and dedicated preparation for this project, I'm thrilled to announce that I have successfully launched my blog, hosted on a domain that I proudly call my own. This inaugural blog post is designed to provide you with a comprehensive overview of the journey that led to the creation of this website. I'll take you through the planning stages, and the selection of technologies that form the backbone of this platform and shed light on the considerable amount of effort and determination that was required to bring this vision to life.

Why a blog?

The decision to build a blog did not come from anywhere, as this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while but lacked the boldness. The main reason I chose this format it lets me be me. This format allows me to share my thoughts with the audience while preserving my unique voice and writing style, and being as technical as I want. From my perspective, authenticity plays a crucial role in creating a blog that resonates with its audience and sustains itself over time.

Design and Theme Selection

I’m not a web designer, nor a UX/UI engineer. I am a software engineer with a preference for the backend, that ended up acquiring some passion for web development over the years. That interest is what held me back from diving into this project without having a design theme in mind first. And that patience paid off when I found the perfect design on Visor Digital. The design there was exactly what I was looking for: beautiful and ready to use right out of the gate, complete with a CMS and pre-configured models. I just had to pay a monthly subscription and BOOM! A new wild blog appears.

But, I didn’t want to take the easy route. As soon as I had the design, I felt compelled to build everything from the ground up. I wanted to pick the framework, choose the database, and make any changes I felt were necessary. It was important to me to apply everything I knew to create something truly my own.

Choosing the technology stack

Honestly, I knew I wanted to go with Next.js since the beginning. It’s beautifully built, and incorporates almost every necessary tech I wanted out-of-the-box: TypeScript and its latest version, react, tailwindcss, dotenv, file-based routing, server-side components beautifully integrated with AWS Lambda (that made my eyes shine), and much more. That’s high-level tech there!

For the backend, I almost went full-dive on Nest.js or some basic express or graphql API with a postgreSQL database alongside caching with Redis and Terraform to manage the infrastructure, all that deployed into the AWS Cloud. And then I thought: WTF, this is a lot for a personal blog! I’ve been focusing on backend applications for years, so starting there sounded like the right way to go. That’s not what I did.

While exploring other approaches I noticed that I didn’t really need a backend the way I was used to. Next.js already has that integration with Lambda, so I can do any backend data processing I need there. Then, I found contentful, which is a headless CMS free for personal use. I could just create my models there and integrate them into my project using graphql or REST. That way I would have a good, tested, and FREE platform to manage all my post content, so I don’t need to care about caching, databases, and all that stuff. Isn’t that beautiful? That’s why I did.

Choosing a headless CMS was a huge lesson for me. I asked myself: why overcomplicate stuff when you have a free solution with everything you need out of the box?

The contact form

I wanted to separate this topic from the previous one to give it some highlights. I was amazed when I found out web3forms, a FREE solution (for personal use) where you can easily create a form, set a token, and send an email that will instantly reach your inbox. It has some limitations regarding the email volumes, but that isn’t a worry for me right now, as I don’t expect to receive 100s of emails.

So don’t hesitate to send me a message. The contact form works and your message will reach my inbox quickly.

Domain name and hosting

You have no idea how much satisfaction I have when I see the domain name geraldosilva.dev. Having my domain is something I've wanted for a long time, but I never had something interesting enough to justify it. NOW I FINALLY DO!!!

I got the domain from namecheap and deployed the website through Vercel. I thought about deploying it into AWS, but then I realized it was just my backend spirit talking again. Vercel is great and takes no more than 1 minute to have your application live on your domain with SSL. I repeated to myself “I will not overcomplicate stuff”. I breathed in and, before I had a chance to exhale, my code was in production. Wow!

Future plans

The blog is just the beginning of something greater. I still need to set some stuff here and there, and maybe come back with my Youtube channel, along with a newsletter to increase the blog reach, which I think are two good ways to pass knowledge ahead. After all, this is the main reason I am doing this.

Thank you

If you’ve reached it here, I want to thank you. It is a pleasure to have you reading my content. I would be very happy to have your “like”, but since I haven’t implemented that button yet, feel free to send me a message. Feedbacks are much appreciated!