For many, many months, I had a Wordpress site that came with a lot of features. Comments, posts, plugins, templates, etc. I found the templates very strict, and hard to shape into a simple, easy-to-change application. I was unsatisfied with the unnecessary complexity of the framework, and needed something that would be easier to develop with.
Enter Astro, a customizable, fast, and free and open-source framework for building websites just like mine. I was drawn especially to the customization qualities. That is, editing or adding UI components is done by just changing the TypeScript code that creates components. I love this, since I can just use the tools that an abstraction like Tailwind or React provide.
Once I fine-tuned the components, creating content for the website was incredibly straightforward. This article, and every other one, are all written directly in Markdown.
Herein lies a perfect abstraction. That is, I can focus on the content while writing, and worry about the styling later. So, development of this website is a very streamlined process.
I’m also excited by Astro’s interface for including media. It “just works”™ since Astro has a great approach to building a CMS. Because of this feature, I am able to bring the awesome photos that I’ve taken on my trips to my website (with minimal loss in image quality!). Each photo showcases a cool memory, or viewpoint that I would love to show the world! I also love that this solution seems very scalable, so expect many more photos to come!
I really enjoyed creating this new site, so please feel free to check out the website in full! Be sure to keep an eye out on the posts and projects for any new updates 👀.
Composed and published at Chase Sapphire Lounge, LGA on March 24, 2025.