I Finally Started a Blog

I’m Nitin, and this is my first post here.

I’ve wanted to start writing for a while. I kept getting stuck on what I was supposed to write about. “Start a blog” sounds simple until you open an empty editor and realise you have to put the first sentence there.

I decided to stop waiting for a perfect topic and make the site first. That gave me something concrete to work on, and it also gave me a reason to write this post.

Making the site

This is my first proper web app. I built it with Astro, mostly because I wanted a site that could stay small and let me write posts in Markdown. I’ve added MDX as well, so I can use components when a post actually needs them instead of forcing everything into plain HTML.

Astro’s documentation helped a lot. I could usually find an example close enough to what I was trying to do, then work out the rest by reading the code. I’m still learning the framework, but that is part of the reason I chose it. This site is allowed to be a place where I figure things out.

While reading Astro’s sitemap docs, I found out that RSS feeds can have styling too. While styling the RSS feed was optional, the default light page hurt my eyes, so I asked Codex to match it to the site. I think it looks amazing.

For styling, I used Tailwind CSS. I’m not a fan of writing a separate CSS rule for every small adjustment, and Tailwind made it easier to try things quickly. I’ve used UnoCSS before and like how flexible it is, but Tailwind was the better fit for this project.

The visual direction was easier to choose: dark zinc colours, a monospace feel, and very little decoration. A lot of the work was in the smaller details: spacing, contrast, and where links should sit. Those choices made the site feel like mine.

What I’ll write about

I’ll use this blog for things I’m already learning about: systems programming, Linux, C, developer tools, and experiments that are worth writing down. I do not want to keep it tied to one fixed topic, so I will write about anything else that feels worth sharing too. Some posts will be tutorials. Some might just be notes about a problem I ran into and how I got past it.

I don’t have a strict publishing schedule. For now, getting the first post out is enough.