SSG days

For the past few years I have been running my website as a static.

2019-2022

The previous version was very similar to the current one. Also a static site, but built with React Static + SCSS.

• Roughly the same design as today.
• Also, a similar information architecture: pages, posts, tags, meta.
• All the content authored with Markdown and pseudo-MDX.
• React is also running on the client-side and you can navigate without full page reloads.

2016-2019

Already a static site back then, but built with my own cool generator joy: , something I had derived from the documentation websites I had built for 2 component libraries at work (Style guide driven development was all the rage).

• Markdown, parsed and rendered by my generator.
• Pure HTML/CSS and some EJS templates.
• No JS running on the browser.
• Full static page reload on navigation.
• This is when I started using the black / red / white colour scheme I believe, as well as the moon picture.

Dark ages of social media

2009-2016

My online identity, presence, and content were entirely suppressed, 😵 swallowed bones and all, by the social networks for reasons I explored in this post.

Wordpress days

2003-2009

Wordpress. Self-hosted on some VPS provider? Why can't I remember, arghh... 😓 I remember Lighttpd and NGINX though. At least a step up from Apache days.

At some point during these years I was running at least 2 or 3 websites at the same time:

• A blog about anything, including how to have fun processing laundry.
• A more professional site, where socks were not invited.
• Sociedade Anónima: a blog about street art in Portugal.

Pre-history

2000-2002

PHP custom stuff, built around Zend and/or Cake and/or something else always evolving. And hosted on some crappy shared hosting provider, managed via cPanel.

Ohhh! I could we? I feel dirty just thinking how hacky and irresponsible the whole thing was.

Still is? 😇

1998-2000

Pure static HTML + CSS + JS and one picture of a matrioska that I was sort of making my "brand".

Written in notepad, my first online CV looked like Flash without the Flash, but indeed with some impressive DHTML animations.

I wish I had some screenshots, let alone the code.

Also, FTP'ed with much ❤️ and patience.

How did it all start?

I have written a boring long page about my story with computers and the internet. You are invited to dig deeper.