Trying to Recapture the Fun of the Internet

More and more recently, I’m finding myself generally worn down, like a lot of people, by the onslaught of AI news and updates and the perpetual pressure from all sides screaming about the benefits as well as time and cost saving measures of AI. I’m not denying those things, one because I’m not best placed or equipped to speak to that, and two I couldn’t really care less. I have taken a fairly strong stance on my AI usage…it is a tool. Just like every other tool that has come before it. It shouldn’t necessrily replace people or take job but it should change those, adapt them, in theory improbe them. This should mean we can take those tedious, difficult or down-right boring parts and automate, simplify or at least nullify some of their negatives. But anyway I wasn trying not to speak to AI directly but to the situation, the vibe and feeling created around it.

I found that things just seem to be getting more cmomplex and complicated as we intro and use AI. It has a greater undersanding than most average engineers about not only frameworks, but the underlying system, and the logic that makes it all happen. As such its unsuprising that its solutions may seem complex to us, but as long as it delivers results then who cares. Well, I care. I started coding as a way to solve problems, to simplify changes and to tackle the issues of others. But it seems that we have add layer upon layer of complexity with all the many components and pieces that make up a modern web app.

To this end I find myself craving the simpler days of the late 90s and early 2000s when things seemed a lot simpler. Now I don’t know that for certain, I was not a web engineer at that time and I’m sure it came with its own difficulties. I also want to avoid being nostalgic and looking through rose-tinted glasses.

I think I wanted (or craved) the chaotic fun of my early ventures into the internet and tech before it became all about preventing being hacked or being as optimal, efficeint and clean./minimal as possible. Rather than creating cool and exciting things…”Move fast and break things”. Ironically that seemingly was original coined by Mark Zuckerbeg, but since has been a motto for internet development.

Anyway that’s enough rambling and general moaning about what is. Now lets talk about what will be (or could be, depends if I actually follow through).

I want to build a personal website. I know, “Wow” I hear you says, “Such a bold idea” I hear you say. Well what I mean is not to do it like I have in the past. In the past its been about developing skills to try and further my career or create something to make money from, that type of stuff. But what I want to do here, is go back to teenage me and make something cool, something fun and something I can share with others. No other purpose. (Yes, there will be a potential for the other things to be a bi-product of this, but I think that’s the point.)

Anyway here’s a rough plan:

1. Build a simple blog using Ruby on Rails I’m choosing Ruby on Rails for 3 reasons:

• It’s simplicity and speed
• The philosophy of the founder (DHH) and the company that came from it (37 Signals)
• To get away from JavaScript, packages managers, frameworks and major config

I love the philosophy of Convention over Configuration and think it will really help to simplify and speed up development leaving more time to think about design and creation.

2. Host it on a VPS I then want to host it on a VPS so I can have control over the way its served and have access to it from the wider internet. Then I can share it with others and connect it to other services if I want to.

3. Connect to my other APIs Use my existing other APIs (Weather Station and Boardgame Library) to pull in data to present on my blog/website.

At the back of my mind the whole time I want to have the Unix philosophy in mind. I want to make things that do one thing and do it well, build them quickly for testing, keep iterating and build lots of things. The last thing I want to do is get stuck on one mammoth project that not even a sinlge feature of sees the light of day.

4. Continue to build something cool The idea is to create a website that is themed as a command center or bridge command of space exploration fleet. The blog will be like the captains log from Star Trek, general observations and musings. There will be data panels and archives (weather data and board game data), maybe even some gamified elements (I’m thinking a random planet generator), or a roguelike system explorer.

I want to have fun with it (if you hadn’t got that already) and so it will be colourful, playful, messy and experimental.

Well that’s the plan. I hope you come back again soon to check out the progress and I hope this post gives you something to think about.

Take care, speak soon.