February 15, 2018

The May 1st Reboot

Two months after redesigning my site, a big event makes me do it all over again.

While chatting with my front-end developers pals online, I explained the life cycle of a front-end dev's personal website:

  1. Remake your site, thinking you'll be satisfied with it for at least two years
  2. Like your new site for a week
  3. Become indifferent to it for four months
  4. Hate it for one month
  5. Hate it while hurriedly remaking it for 1 month
  6. Finish your new site with a huge sigh of relief
  7. Repeat

However I've decided to shortcut through this cycle. I've updated my site just two months ago, and already plan to update it again.

It's all thanks to something called the "May 1 Reboot" Challenge. The goal is simple: remake and relaunch your personal site with something new, all by May 1st. One developer shared the challenge with us, and we all soon decided to take it on together.

For my reboot, I'm focusing on learning more React. The biggest shift is moving from Jekyll to Gatsby, another static site generator built around React. I've also included a sub-challenge I'll just call the "Reactrix" for now.

I have higher hopes for this personal site redesign. It's the first I'm doing as part of a larger group, giving each other advice and accountability. With luck, this one will stick around longer before the cycle repeats.