Listen– I know that I've redesigned my website a few times. And maybe it's been so many times that I've lost count.
So exactly how many times have I completely remade my blog? To find out, I opened up GitHub and searched my repos for the word "personal". Here's what I discovered:
To my surprise, I had nearly one site redesign every year! As I scrolled through the results, I realized I had completely forgotten about most of these.
So this morning, I made a cup of coffee, sat down, and started to download each of my old projects. Luckily I had a nice README file with each one, so running them again in 2024 wasn't a big hassle! Here are all the memories I unlocked along the way.
When I first got started with web development, it was in jQuery and FoundationCSS. It was a time before frameworks like React, and everyone was making apps with Bootstrap.
Apparently, I really loved the idea of using FontAwesome Icons (with no labels!) for navigation. To my surprise, even with my basic understanding of HTML/CSS/JS, the website looks pretty solid on mobile!
It was cool to remember how much responsive design was a part of my foundations in web design. The idea that a single codebase would work on all my friend's phones, laptops, and desktops was what originally motivated me to learn web development.
The ability to just create something and share it via URL was exciting!
The past two years involved learning a lot of new technologies. I had moved on from jQuery, got my first web dev job, and was building applications with Angular, React, Vue.js.
2016 was the year I learned about Elm! Apparently it was also the year I thought it was a good idea to describe myself as a "A web developer with no social skills".
To get the app working, I had to reinstall Elm v0.18 and figure out how to get Gulp working– my current version of Node.js did not want to run my old gulp tasks.
This was the beginning of an era of me using lowercase letters for titles. At the time, I think this was my way of expressing a cool, laid-back vibe. I genuinely have no idea what those weird squares are on the code blocks.
In October 2018, I really went all in on blue gradients. Does the page need text? Maybe some images? Videos? Nah.
What people really want is some nice, clean boxes! I don't even think they want other pages in their navbars.
I don't remember this website very much, and it looks like it was only up for 2 months. By December 2018, I had this new version up:
This version I do remember more clearly! This site was where I explored using Elm and ExpressJS to make a REST API. It was a three-part blog post, too.
This redesign felt like a step in the wrong direction. It was somehow intense and bland at the same time. Glad I tried it out, glad it's over.
I feel like this was a trend at some point. Like there was a HackerNews clone with this style or something... Maybe it was one of my HackerNews clones?
Honestly, I forgot about how adorable and round everything on this design was. I love the tiny sidebar, I love the rounded underlines. Why did I get rid of this thing?
Whenever Nunito gets involved, you know you're in for a good time.
This website was my first attempt at server-side rendering Elm by extending the elm/html package. It worked out okay, and I wrote about it a bit in SSR for Hackers.
In a rebellious twist against client-side JavaScript, I made my entire website in Hugo. I was really inspired by this beautiful pink-and-orange gradient from the elm-conf 2018 event.
I decided 2022 was the year to make my brand deeppink and coral. I thought the bright colors were a good way to let people know I'm a friendly guy.
This was also my first website that feature an "Arcade" section! I love making web apps, but I also like making games. And when I make games using web technology, folks can play right in the browser, no downloads, no nonsense!
Well the website you're currently reading this on isn't quite ready yet. I'd put a cool screenshot here if it was- but it ain't!
My motivation for creating "ryan.town", and retiring "rhg.dev", is that I want a space on the web where I can share all the different things I'm passionate about. I'm in the middle of a gap year, and learning a bunch of new stuff!
Whether it's Elm, 3D game development, or random stuff like music or art– I want Ryan Town to be a fun little space where I can share things as I make them.
I've redesigned this site using "Elm Static", a tiny framework I made for combining Elm and Markdown to make a static website.
That means <meta> tags for sharing things on Discord, Twitter, etc– but with the power of being able to embed interactive Elm components to help folks visualize topics I'm talking about. Text isn't for everyone!
As an impressive demo to get you excited for the future of Ryan Town, here's a weird little WebGL program:
See, I can just throw that kind of stuff in the middle of a blog post. We're living the future!!
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