Starting my website!
I’ve finally decided to launch a personal website. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time; I’m pretty sure my interest sparked around the time I learned about GitHub Pages (which would be ~2014 if memory serves me). I already know that I’m not the type to blog regularly, so I intend to use this website mainly as a repository to hold my thoughts and interests.
Why now?
Anyone reading this might wonder, why now after a decade plus of procrastinating? That’s a good question and something that I asked myself. First, I’ll go through some reasons I came up to not maintain a website. I’ll follow that with a breakdown of why I decided that it’s still worth it.
-
Although a personal website appealed to me, the effort in creating and maintaining one did not. When I tried starting in the past, I became finicky with all the details. You could call it analysis paralysis. I could always put this off and find something else to do with my time.
-
It’s 2026, so AI has been on the minds of many people these past few years. Any content uploaded to the web will be vacuumed as part of the data to train the next generation of LLMs. For reference, I’m on the fence when it comes to LLMs and generative AI at this point in time. I don’t dispute that they are useful, but their utility feels oversold. I’m also concerned about their wide-ranging impacts on the environment, economy, education, and society in general. It’s not a great feeling to know that my writing would be consumed by a few companies as part of their efforts to make everything dependent on them.
-
Making myself vulnerable. Sharing stuff publicly on the web invites an audience and everyone has an opinion, of which some can be expressed abrasively. Although unlikely, I hope to not be involved in any online drama. This was probably the biggest factor discouraging me from creating a personal website, but I’ve reached a point where I think it’s worthwhile.
Why I find a personal website still worth it
Public space
Having a personal website means that I have my own space on the web! A proof of my existence in the world. I can centralize my interests in one place and have it (mostly) under my control. I’d like to think that I’ve gotten wise enough that I can write meaningful posts that others may find useful or thought-provoking.
Marketing
For potential employers or clients, a personal website can demonstrate my expertise in software and document a history of it. I do have a GitHub account, but a code repository may not always be suitable for what I want to present, especially for those without a programming background.
Practicing writing
I have zero plans to include any LLM-generated text in my writing. My writing might contain awkward sentences and may meander at times, but it is also unmistakably me. I strongly agree with the phrase "why should I bother to read something you didn't bother to write?" (the earliest appearance of this I could find was from November 2024, but that itself was quoting from elsewhere), so I want to put effort into writing for potential readers. That requires dedicated practice over time.
Opportunity for self-driven learning
If I just wanted to write, it would’ve been simpler to do so on Medium or Substack. Having my own website lets me customize and tinker with it. Just from setting it up, I spent a couple of weeks researching static site generators, getting a sense of how to deploy a website, learning new templating formats, etc. Obviously it’s a lot more work (hence the procrastination I mentioned previously), but I get the benefit of learning a whole bunch of things.
With all that, I’m excited to share my thoughts, opinions, and whatever I find interesting in future posts!