During the rise of React, I watched from the sidelines. š¤
Like others at the time working on a large scale website, our code was based on jQuery and we were working on migrating to TypeScript with a strong focus on leveraging the native browser functionality that was evolving quickly. That custom TypeScript framework has served the Microsoft Learn site well and has resulted in a performant and accesible site. Being a custom and opinionated framework does require a fair bit of training though and as more teams started contributing UI code the challenges multiplied.
Fast-forward to January of this year and Iām preparing to take a new role as the Engineering team lead for Stripe docs, a very dynamic React-based site. I was excited for sure, and I started studying as soon as I could.
First thing I had to do was realize my bias against React was unfounded. I equated it to quick page responses with loading circles that spin forever. React as a library is pretty amazing and like any tool, how you use it is key.
As a way to learn in a smaller greenfield environment, Iāve built this new blog.
- Itās a small content management system built on Remix and it has the standard Blog Post formatting and metadata like this page. It also has a Blog Tag page as a nice way to organize posts. Iām using TailwindCSS for the CSS library.
- Content is stored as Markdown and parsed using MarkDoc, Stripeās own markdown parser. The custom component story and overall flexibility is really awesome. It renders to HTML or React Elements.
- The site is hosted on Cloudflare and the static assets are hosted on Cloudflare Images. The speed and ease of serving flexible-sized images really opens up possibilities for page design.
Iāve seeded the blog with some memories from the past for fun. Most of these old posts are from disparate social media sites. This blog will act as my attempt to de-platform a bit.
Overall Iām impressed and you can call me a convert ā I ā¤ļøReact.