Myles Glass

Multidisciplinary Designer
A dark screen with computer code on it. The code text is light and colourful on a dark background. Shallow depth of field.

The First-est Post I Ever Wrote

WebDev Log

So, I’m writing this post from the web interface of Sanity, meaning I’m logged in via mylesglass.com/admin. It seems to be working now and, all things considered, didn’t take too much time to set up. I feel like I finally understand what’s happening under the hood.

A Short History of Myles, Web Development, & Content Management Systems

I have been doing web development for a while now. I know I wrote my first piece of HTML in Year 5 or 6 when I got into Mr J’s class. Mr J had computers in his classroom, previously we’d had to go to the computer lab to use them. Standard beige systems, I think we might’ve been on Windows XP by this point. XP released when I was nine so that tracks. A boy in my class called Henry showed me how to make a marquee element. I probably used it to make dick jokes.

Anyway, fast-forward through high school and university, and I started taking on web development jobs. I ended up rotating through different CMSs constantly, never finding one that stuck. I spent a lot of time reverse-engineering WordPress themes to get the PHP to do what I wanted. Ugh.

I eventually settled on making lots of Static Site Generated sites (SSG) because most people just want a couple of pages, a nice design sense, and reliability. Netlify CMS (now Decap CMS) was my go-to; it worked, and I could "set and forget" it.

Stepping Forward

But alas, I need to move into the modern world. Coding websites is fun once you know your tools. I like editorial design, and I feel good websites are still an extension of that - even if we aren’t printing pages anymore. I just need to learn these tools a bit more.

Lately, I’ve been learning Astro. That transition was incredibly easy because I’ve spent a lot of time with Nuxt (Vue) and SvelteKit (Svelte), and it’s effectively the same logic... but I’d say at this point, it's even easier to work with. Hopefully, that remains true for many moons.

Setting up this project has immediately made me feel more comfortable with modern tooling. It has also been the most intuitive experience I’ve had building for the web in a long, long time. I have a "Debian mindset" when it comes to software: I don't want to add anything more than is absolutely necessary, and I only add specific tools as I need them. Those tools need to be on solid footing, with a good track record of stability and a community to learn from.

I’d become disillusioned with many frameworks over the last few years. So much... stuff. Not to say Astro is lightweight on the backend, but the end result is—and that’s really all that matters. Svelte has that going for it, too.

What’s Next?

There is certainly still some functionality I want to add to this project before I can "1.0" it. Namely:

  • Tags: Finish up the tagging functionality.
  • Rich Media: Extend the post editor—I’m noticing now that I can’t upload an image to put in the middle of this post. That seems wrong, no? I want content in my posts that isn't just type.
  • Navigation: Build a menu that feels like an actual navigation system.
  • About Page: A place to actually introduce myself.
  • Photography: A dedicated gallery.

That seems like a solid roadmap. Okay, that’s my log. Bye.

P.S. added build webhook

P.P.S. I want this one at the top