A weird story about how sometimes one thing leads to another
· 3 min · ¶
Short Introduction
Since August, I've been back to blogging and this time, it feels much better than my first attempt a decade ago. Back then, I delved into blogging during my studies in the early/mid-2000s, just before the WordPress boom. My journey began with WordPress Version 1.2[1], marking my entry into the community. I joined WordPress Deutschland (WPDE)[2], won a book in a theme contest, became a WPDE forum moderator, co-founded Inpsyde[3], and eventually burned out.
Transition
A significant hiatus followed, mentioned on the start page. I withdrew from web development, focused on myself, met my wife, and ended up in a job that partly relied on my experience with HTML, CSS, PHP & Co. The websites I semi-editorially oversee run on Typo3[4] (expressing my strong dislike for Typo3 is challenging). Hence, I offered to create a presentation website. That was fun, especially collaborating with a designer. I had nothing to do with the design, so I finally got to let loose with JavaScript and some wild CSS stuff. In short, I'm back in the game. I created this blog based on Yellow, shamelessly borrowing the design from the PaperMod[5] theme for Hugo, and have been tinkering with it since August. Phew, I feel like the beginning is longer than the crux of the matter...
Transition Part 2
With frittiert.es[6], newsfeeds came back into focus (recently reported[7]). These charming, somewhat nerdy things alert subscribers (like you?[8]) to updates on the subscribed website, not as intrusive as modern push notifications. I'd like to call newsfeeds “almost analog,” but maybe another time. Back to the topic: Reading Evan Travers'[9] feed led me to a “secret” circle, and the App Defaults[10] party dumped its OPML into my reader. From that illustrious group, I subscribed to a few, including a certain Kev Quirk, who mentioned hyblog by Colin Walker[11] in a post[12]. Ha! That's exactly where I wanted my rambling to lead. 😁
Conscience Interjection
"...he said, took a deep breath, and the next torrent prepared itself in his mind."
– The voice in my head
The Crux of the Matter
For something diary-like meant to be non-public online, I was looking for something even leaner than Yellow, and hyblog[13] seemed like the right fit. It even has on-page editing. I installed and tried it. Unfortunately, I immediately encountered a bug. I reported an issue[14] to Colin via GitHub, and he promptly responded. Excitement spread. Unfortunately, shortly after, another problem popped up. So, Colin and I exchanged messages on GitHub for a while before I chose a somewhat unorthodox approach: I asked ChatGPT, after narrowing down the code causing the issue, where the problem might lie. Well, now it's running as intended, and Colin and I have accidentally become pen pals. (You can read about the pen pal thing at Kev's post[15].)
Epilogue
You might wonder why you had to read the detailed backstory, and the ending came so suddenly. Well, first, I'm currently dealing with depression, and I'm a bit proud that I took the time to write all this. Also, I suspect ADHD plays a role for me. In any case, thank you for making it this far, and I'd appreciate tips on how to improve the next post or the one after.