This site ProZine is not just a web version take on a Zine, in that it’s about Mastery, Purpose, Fulfilment and Productivity. It’s also about sharing a bit of my story and challenges in the hope that helps other to lead a better life.

The project of starting this site, has a couple key challenges; On the fullstack developer spectrum I’m far more near the backend, and I’m no writer.

The Writting Challenge

For 6th Form English at high school I got the 9. If you’re from my error you’ll know just about bad that is. I’ve been told it’s harder to get than the top grade of a 1. Anyhow, I’ve probably done alright since then, having realised how important effective communication is. But I’ve never written anything much that’s public, or that I’ve wanted to be public. In this case I want to share what I’ve discovered and learnt, as I’ve benefited from all those that have already shared. So the writting challenge is to improve my ability to write for you the reader so what I share helps you without taking up to much of your time.

The Technical Challenge

I’m no front end developer, that’s for sure. I know some of the basics of HTML and CSS. And I’ve done okay writting TypeScript on a project before.

In choosing a technology stack I’ve asked my self “If this was easy what would it look like?”

principle: If this was easy, what would it look like?

This has lead to the following decisions:

  1. Instaed of using a Content Management System (CMS), I have choosen a Static Site Generator.
  2. Of the Static Site Generators out there I’ve chosen Hugo, as I’ve used it a little bit in the past, see it’s has matured and has quite a good following. I considered Gatsby as I believe JAMStack is a pretty smart way to deliver content and applications as one.
  3. I’ll use a CSS framework to assist with the rapidly styling the site. I’ve choose BootStrap as it’s popular, the documentation is pretty good, and there are plenty of sites using it that can be used as examples.

I’m also very keen to balance myself out on the fullstack spectrum by picking up enough front end skills so that I have a complete toolset that I can use to rapidly pull together an application in the future.