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Introduction

So it has been about 6 months since my last post where I said I was moving tech stack over to PHP. Life got pretty busy the first six months of this year, and I haven't had time to work on anything outside of job responsibilities and some contracting here and there for extra cash. But I finally have some time again! I would like to report that I moved the blog back to PHP-based. It was initially PHP in its first incarnation years ago before it was moved to nodejs. But it's PHP again, but slightly better this time. What makes it better? This time, it is not a giant laravel project to display a few pieces of text. I did the right thing and spent a few hours writing a static site generator.

As a quick overview of the way the blog now works

• It uses the console component from Symfony since building CLI tools by hand sucks.
• The CLI tool converts markdown files into HTML pages based on twig layouts.
• It also handles generating SEO tags and open graph tags as well. Which is good since I like the little cards you get when
• A link is posted to Twitter or shared on Slack.
• It uses Slim for routing, though now that I think about it, a hand-rolled router would have worked just as well.
• I came across Tacit for CSS, which I found pretty neat.

That is for the blog. It works great for now.

Ideas currently floating in my head

This is a list of things that I've been thinking about building. I've been into making minimal tools and minimal web pages for a while now. So most of these ideas are related to that.

• minimal URL shortener
• minimal Instagram
• minimal Pastebin
• minimal file sharing

My goal is to build the above using the least amount of dependencies possible while creating single-purpose tools that are fast and not bloated. I'm likely sticking to writing stuff in PHP since it's familiar to me.

Though in order to stick with the philosophy of keeping things small, I want to go with something that will give me an executable that can be deployed.

Some life updates

• They can't kick me out of the country anymore since I am a citizen.
• Lost a lot more weight now, around 187 pounds. Down from a high of 240.
• Currently into running, which is better than cycling since you are less likely to die from getting hit by a car.

Outro

This section was writen by chatGPT because that is what the cool kids do now

To wrap it up, these past six months have been hectic for me. But I'm thrilled to announce that I finally have some time to dedicate to my blog and other projects. I've significantly improved its performance and functionality by moving the blog back to PHP and implementing a static site generator. I'm excited to build minimal tools and web pages focusing on simplicity, speed, and efficiency. Becoming a citizen, losing weight, and finding joy in running have also been positive developments in my life. I can't wait to share more content and engage with the tech community. Stay tuned for exciting updates and minimalist creations!

"I told it to keep the post style consistent, but I swear it writes like a student trying to hit the minimum word count. "

German