Building a Personal Website in 2021

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on news.ycombinator.com

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  • WorkOS - The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS
  • InfluxDB - Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale
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  • hugo-blox-builder

    😍 EASILY BUILD THE WEBSITE YOU WANT - NO CODE, JUST MARKDOWN BLOCKS! 使用块轻松创建任何类型的网站 - 无需代码。 一个应用程序,没有依赖项,没有 JS

  • If you're building a personal website from scratch in 2021 (especially a blog), I strongly recommend Hugo over Jekyll. I had used Jekyll for a decade and very often hit random quirks that have been completely eliminated with modern Hugo. However, there's a bit of a migration process if you are moving from Jekyll to Hugo despite both being Markdown-based blogs.

    If you want a more advanced framework for a personal website, I recommend Wowchemy (https://wowchemy.com/) on top of Hugo, which gives the tools needed out-of-the-box like lazy loading/SEO/object-oriented collections, albeit with a massive learning curve.

  • runninginproduction.com

    The website for the Running in Production podcast.

  • The code for this is here: https://github.com/nickjj/runninginproduction.com/blob/maste...

    It would be super interesting to see a Hugo equivalent for the audio_seek custom filter. I don't expect you to spend your Sunday afternoon writing such a thing but it would be interesting to see a direct comparison of how you would implement it with Hugo.

  • WorkOS

    The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.

    WorkOS logo
  • moonsharp

    Enhanced MoonSharp for improved Tabletop Simulator mod development (by tts-community)

  • Me: Okay. I'm just going to prototype a game. Don't want to get carried away. I won't even write a game engine. I'll use Tabletop Simulator.

    Friend: Sounds good. How's it going?

    Me: Well. I needed to be able to debug my code. https://github.com/tts-community/moonsharp-tts-debug

    Friend: Oh, neat. So your game is done now?

    Me: Not exactly. I had to had in matchmaking by reverse engineering Steam. https://github.com/SteamRE/SteamKit/pull/704

    Friend: Ah. Alright. Can I play it now?

    Me: Nah, I was finding it hard to maintain code. I wrote a Lua code bundler. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/luabundle

    Friend: Sweet.

    Me: Yeah, but I decided to integrate it into the official tooling. https://github.com/Berserk-Games/atom-tabletopsimulator-lua/...

    Friend: I'm sure the community will be thankful.

    Me: I hope so. I now run a small community of TTS developers. https://github.com/tts-community/

    Friend: Right. You must be done by now.

    Me: Nah, I couldn't statically type check my code. So I wrote some types. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/tts-types

    Friend: Seems unnecessary for a prototype, but sure.

    Me: I had to write my own IDE to use them though. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/IntelliJ-Luanalysis

    Friend: Right... So how'd the game going then?

    Me: Oh, I'm not doing that anymore. I now consult for Berserk Games, developers of Tabletop Simulator

    Friend: ...

  • SteamKit

    SteamKit2 is a .NET library designed to interoperate with Valve's Steam network. It aims to provide a simple, yet extensible, interface to perform various actions on the network.

  • Me: Okay. I'm just going to prototype a game. Don't want to get carried away. I won't even write a game engine. I'll use Tabletop Simulator.

    Friend: Sounds good. How's it going?

    Me: Well. I needed to be able to debug my code. https://github.com/tts-community/moonsharp-tts-debug

    Friend: Oh, neat. So your game is done now?

    Me: Not exactly. I had to had in matchmaking by reverse engineering Steam. https://github.com/SteamRE/SteamKit/pull/704

    Friend: Ah. Alright. Can I play it now?

    Me: Nah, I was finding it hard to maintain code. I wrote a Lua code bundler. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/luabundle

    Friend: Sweet.

    Me: Yeah, but I decided to integrate it into the official tooling. https://github.com/Berserk-Games/atom-tabletopsimulator-lua/...

    Friend: I'm sure the community will be thankful.

    Me: I hope so. I now run a small community of TTS developers. https://github.com/tts-community/

    Friend: Right. You must be done by now.

    Me: Nah, I couldn't statically type check my code. So I wrote some types. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/tts-types

    Friend: Seems unnecessary for a prototype, but sure.

    Me: I had to write my own IDE to use them though. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/IntelliJ-Luanalysis

    Friend: Right... So how'd the game going then?

    Me: Oh, I'm not doing that anymore. I now consult for Berserk Games, developers of Tabletop Simulator

    Friend: ...

  • luabundle

    A library for bundling several Lua files into a single file.

  • Me: Okay. I'm just going to prototype a game. Don't want to get carried away. I won't even write a game engine. I'll use Tabletop Simulator.

    Friend: Sounds good. How's it going?

    Me: Well. I needed to be able to debug my code. https://github.com/tts-community/moonsharp-tts-debug

    Friend: Oh, neat. So your game is done now?

    Me: Not exactly. I had to had in matchmaking by reverse engineering Steam. https://github.com/SteamRE/SteamKit/pull/704

    Friend: Ah. Alright. Can I play it now?

    Me: Nah, I was finding it hard to maintain code. I wrote a Lua code bundler. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/luabundle

    Friend: Sweet.

    Me: Yeah, but I decided to integrate it into the official tooling. https://github.com/Berserk-Games/atom-tabletopsimulator-lua/...

    Friend: I'm sure the community will be thankful.

    Me: I hope so. I now run a small community of TTS developers. https://github.com/tts-community/

    Friend: Right. You must be done by now.

    Me: Nah, I couldn't statically type check my code. So I wrote some types. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/tts-types

    Friend: Seems unnecessary for a prototype, but sure.

    Me: I had to write my own IDE to use them though. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/IntelliJ-Luanalysis

    Friend: Right... So how'd the game going then?

    Me: Oh, I'm not doing that anymore. I now consult for Berserk Games, developers of Tabletop Simulator

    Friend: ...

  • atom-tabletopsimulator-lua

    Tabletop Simulator scripting package for Atom.

  • Me: Okay. I'm just going to prototype a game. Don't want to get carried away. I won't even write a game engine. I'll use Tabletop Simulator.

    Friend: Sounds good. How's it going?

    Me: Well. I needed to be able to debug my code. https://github.com/tts-community/moonsharp-tts-debug

    Friend: Oh, neat. So your game is done now?

    Me: Not exactly. I had to had in matchmaking by reverse engineering Steam. https://github.com/SteamRE/SteamKit/pull/704

    Friend: Ah. Alright. Can I play it now?

    Me: Nah, I was finding it hard to maintain code. I wrote a Lua code bundler. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/luabundle

    Friend: Sweet.

    Me: Yeah, but I decided to integrate it into the official tooling. https://github.com/Berserk-Games/atom-tabletopsimulator-lua/...

    Friend: I'm sure the community will be thankful.

    Me: I hope so. I now run a small community of TTS developers. https://github.com/tts-community/

    Friend: Right. You must be done by now.

    Me: Nah, I couldn't statically type check my code. So I wrote some types. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/tts-types

    Friend: Seems unnecessary for a prototype, but sure.

    Me: I had to write my own IDE to use them though. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/IntelliJ-Luanalysis

    Friend: Right... So how'd the game going then?

    Me: Oh, I'm not doing that anymore. I now consult for Berserk Games, developers of Tabletop Simulator

    Friend: ...

  • tts-types

    Tabletop Simulator EmmyLua types.

  • Me: Okay. I'm just going to prototype a game. Don't want to get carried away. I won't even write a game engine. I'll use Tabletop Simulator.

    Friend: Sounds good. How's it going?

    Me: Well. I needed to be able to debug my code. https://github.com/tts-community/moonsharp-tts-debug

    Friend: Oh, neat. So your game is done now?

    Me: Not exactly. I had to had in matchmaking by reverse engineering Steam. https://github.com/SteamRE/SteamKit/pull/704

    Friend: Ah. Alright. Can I play it now?

    Me: Nah, I was finding it hard to maintain code. I wrote a Lua code bundler. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/luabundle

    Friend: Sweet.

    Me: Yeah, but I decided to integrate it into the official tooling. https://github.com/Berserk-Games/atom-tabletopsimulator-lua/...

    Friend: I'm sure the community will be thankful.

    Me: I hope so. I now run a small community of TTS developers. https://github.com/tts-community/

    Friend: Right. You must be done by now.

    Me: Nah, I couldn't statically type check my code. So I wrote some types. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/tts-types

    Friend: Seems unnecessary for a prototype, but sure.

    Me: I had to write my own IDE to use them though. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/IntelliJ-Luanalysis

    Friend: Right... So how'd the game going then?

    Me: Oh, I'm not doing that anymore. I now consult for Berserk Games, developers of Tabletop Simulator

    Friend: ...

  • InfluxDB

    Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

    InfluxDB logo
  • IntelliJ-Luanalysis

    Type-safe Lua IDE — IntelliJ IDEA plugin

  • Me: Okay. I'm just going to prototype a game. Don't want to get carried away. I won't even write a game engine. I'll use Tabletop Simulator.

    Friend: Sounds good. How's it going?

    Me: Well. I needed to be able to debug my code. https://github.com/tts-community/moonsharp-tts-debug

    Friend: Oh, neat. So your game is done now?

    Me: Not exactly. I had to had in matchmaking by reverse engineering Steam. https://github.com/SteamRE/SteamKit/pull/704

    Friend: Ah. Alright. Can I play it now?

    Me: Nah, I was finding it hard to maintain code. I wrote a Lua code bundler. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/luabundle

    Friend: Sweet.

    Me: Yeah, but I decided to integrate it into the official tooling. https://github.com/Berserk-Games/atom-tabletopsimulator-lua/...

    Friend: I'm sure the community will be thankful.

    Me: I hope so. I now run a small community of TTS developers. https://github.com/tts-community/

    Friend: Right. You must be done by now.

    Me: Nah, I couldn't statically type check my code. So I wrote some types. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/tts-types

    Friend: Seems unnecessary for a prototype, but sure.

    Me: I had to write my own IDE to use them though. https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/IntelliJ-Luanalysis

    Friend: Right... So how'd the game going then?

    Me: Oh, I'm not doing that anymore. I now consult for Berserk Games, developers of Tabletop Simulator

    Friend: ...

  • DistorteD

    Ruby multimedia toolkit with deep Jekyll integration 🧪

  • I considered switching to Hugo a while back but ended up sticking with Jekyll for the extensibility, like a few others have said. I'm particularly interested in image thumbnailing and format conversion since so many of my posts are image-heavy. I often found that to be my biggest and most frequent barrier to writing since plain text only goes so far on the modern web.

    In Hugo, every solution I've seen uses a custom shortcode or custom Markdown image template-rendering hook along with Hugo's build-in image resizing. Many posts even suggest converting image resources to different formats with an external tool. It does seem like the image handling situation in Hugo is improving since it just gained WebP processing support in addition to JPEG: https://gohugo.io/news/0.83.0-relnotes/

    Jekyll plugins offer way more power than a shortcode ('include' in Jekyll-speak) can, like how the author of the OP is using Jekyll-Picture-Tag. I've been working on my own similar plugin to handle converting and embedding my site's images, videos, SVGs, PDFs, text files, fonts and weird retro computer formats, etc. For example I can embed an SVG using standard Markdown syntax like `![](somediagram.svg)` and get a tag with the SVG plus rasterized JPG+WebP+AVIF+whatever at multiple sizes all totally seamlessly: https://github.com/okeeblow/DistorteD

    Very happy the existence of Hugo lit a fire under the Jekyll team to work on speed though :)

NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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