So I created a website.

So I created a website.

For many years I have put off making a website for myself. I believed that it was such an overwhelming endeavour because to make a website you have to compress the entirety of your being into a single webpage. I deemed it necessary to incorporate every technology and library, and ensure every page be chock-full of spectacle.

"It must have GSAP," I thought. "Or Motion, or Anime.js. It must be full of advanced animation and fanciful components darting about the screen."

"It must use Three.js," I decided. "How will anyone think I am capable if I don't have a 3D model of myself beautifully rendered and animated alongside my projects and accomplishments?"

But the most important thing, above all else, is that it must be cool. Any viewer lucky enough to stumble upon my website must be so blown away that they will be compelled to reach out to me and thank me for my creation. Or perhaps, share it with all their friends, in accordance with their righteous duty to spread the gospel.

My wishes then for my website, though subtly egotistical, had good intentions. I believed that my website had to make a statement. A statement of who I am, and how good I am. And at the time I believed only through stunning graphics and animation could this be conveyed. Only through CSS peacockery, of course, could I show that I am a serious software engineer.

Now, however, I have come to realise a different truth. I have looked at hundreds of portfolio websites by now, and a pattern emerges. The engineers whose work I most admire tend to have the plainest of sites: black text on a white page, a list of things they have built, and an email address. The sites straining hardest to dazzle usually have the least underneath; the ornament appears to stands in for the work. The more a site tried to impress me, I found the less it did. I had spent years occupied with appearing good. But the other option, it turns out, is being good.

This website is my decision to be good. It is simple, and it says who I am. There is nothing here but the work, and there will be more of it. That will have to be the statement.

10/07/2026