The Many Lives of parkerhiggins.com: A Web Development Journey

Building a personal website is a bit like tending a garden; it’s a constant process of growth, pruning, and replanting. Over the years, parkerhiggins.com has undergone numerous transformations, each reflecting my evolving interests and technical explorations.

My initial foray into web presence was a simple affair – a Hugo site, minimalist in design, featuring a static image and essential links. It was straightforward and functional, a digital business card of sorts. But as my aspirations grew, I sought a more dynamic and engaging platform.

Enter Notion and Super.so. I was captivated by the simplicity of Notion’s content management and the seamless integration with Super.so, which allowed me to create a polished website with minimal coding. This approach offered a quick and efficient way to showcase my work and ideas.

However, my passion for open-source technologies, particularly Meta’s Docusaurus, soon drew me in another direction. I’ve built numerous documentation sites using Docusaurus, and I’m a firm believer in its power and ease of use. It’s a fantastic single-page application (SPA) framework, offering a beautiful and extensible platform for creating comprehensive documentation.

For my latest iteration of parkerhiggins.com, I decided to venture into new territory and explore Astro. Coupled with Cloudflare Pages and Wrangler for deployment, this combination offered a fresh perspective on web development.

Why the switch from Docusaurus? While I deeply appreciate its structured approach and elegant design, I craved greater flexibility in my codebase. I wanted the freedom to experiment beyond the confines of a documentation framework. Astro’s island architecture and component-driven approach provided the perfect canvas for this exploration.

Docusaurus excels at creating focused, documentation-heavy websites. Astro, on the other hand, empowers me to build a more diverse and adaptable platform. It allows me to blend static content with interactive components, creating a dynamic and engaging user experience, and it only took 20 minutes to do the intiial setup.

This journey with parkerhiggins.com has been a continuous learning experience. Each iteration has taught me valuable lessons about web development, technology, and the ever-evolving landscape of the internet. And while the site may continue to evolve, one thing remains constant: my passion for building, creating, and experimenting.

Stay tuned for more updates as I continue to refine and enhance parkerhiggins.com!