I like coding. I also enjoy writing (well, code, articles, stories like this one, and cheques. But I don't have money, so I don't write those). Learning web development for the past year has been exciting, confusing, satisfying, disillusioning, enlightening, and sometimes, incredibly heart-shattering. A true kaleidoscope of shifting emotions. But I'm still holding on.
Recently, it was suggested to me that I could write about these experiences- concepts I am learning along the way, little hacks and discoveries, projects, anything, really. This should help me get a firmer grasp of things, document my progress and make me more accountable. I fancy the Feynman Learning Technique, and this blog will serve as my platform to implement the second step (explaining the chosen concept to myself or another person- you, reader mine- in the simplest of terms that even a student in the sixth grade would understand). Also, the world is my bitch, apparently, and I can do anything I want. Ha!
The world is your bitch.
So it was settled: great idea, smart plan, excellent motto. Next was to actually create a blog. But on which platform? There are many popular blogging platforms for developers , with good reason: Medium, Dev To, freeCodeCamp, Hacker Noon, Wordpress, Hashnode... I could go on. It really just depends on what you need, be it traffic, certain features, SEO benefits, or autonomy to customise your blog or republish content to other platforms. Or you just need it to be free. Free is good. Free is even better when it comes with the other benefits. That's why I chose Hashnode. Here are some of the perks of Hashnode:
Custom Domain. You can map your custom domain using Hashnode's CNAME pointing feature, for free. A custom domain e.g. username.dev is shorter than username.hashnode.dev. It's easier to remember, looks more professional, and you get all the SEO benefits.
Autonomy. As you retain all the rights to your content, you are free to cross-post it to other platforms; you can download all your posts, or export them to GitHub as a backup, if you want.
PS: When republishing your content on other platforms, use a canonical URL if you are interested in protecting your SEO.
Highly customisable.. If you don't want to build your own blog from scratch but want one that's personalised, Hashnode is the right place for you. Thanks to the platform's custom CSS feature, you can highlight your personality by manipulating your blog's background, fonts, hex colours and more CSS features. You can even change the logo.
Features. After all this, sadly, you might still not get all the features you want since someone else built it, after all. However, you can propose a desired feature and hope that it'll be implemented.
No paywall. Unlike on other platforms, like Medium, which require readers to pay to subscribe to their content, your content will not be behind a paywall, meaning that anybody can access it without a paid subscription.
Pretty cool, huh?
Other links you might find helpful:
catalins.tech/should-developers-use-an-exis..
support.hashnode.com/docs/mapping-domain