New Website

June 20, 2025

My first website was just a cheap HTML template. I barely understood what I was editing. I swapped out some images, changed a few words, and called it my portfolio. It looked okay - but none of it was really mine. It was like filling in blanks on someone else's resume.

Eventually, I wanted more control.

So I moved to Framer.

At the time, everyone online was saying:
"No-code is the future."
"Design and publish, all in one place."

And honestly, Framer was fun. Drag-and-drop, quick animations, live previews - it made everything feel effortless. But beneath all that polish, it was bloated. My "second" site looked slick, but it ran slow. Animations lagged. Pages stuttered on low-end devices. Performance wasn't just an afterthought - it was a sacrifice.

The Problem with Framer

That site ended up pushing way too much JavaScript, even for something as simple as a portfolio. It loaded assets I didn't even use. And when I looked at the code behind it... I didn't really learn anything. I wasn't writing. I was just arranging.

It didn't teach me how to build.
It taught me how to decorate.

So after a few months, I scrapped it.

What I Wanted

I didn't want to rely on generators or site builders.
I didn't want to jump back into frameworks like Hugo or React.
I didn't even want Tailwind.

I wanted to build everything from the rawest level possible.
No shortcuts. No abstraction. Just me, a blank file, and some CSS.

This Site

This entire site is written in pure HTML and CSS. Nothing more.

No libraries. No frameworks. No JavaScript. Not because I hate those things, but because I wanted to push the limits of how much I could do inside a small, enclosed space.

I wanted to understand every single part of the page:
Why it's aligned this way.
How the blur works.
What happens when the screen gets smaller.
How to make something look modern without depending on a framework's idea of "modern."

The glassmorphism design? Hand-coded.
The layout? Fully responsive - by me.
This site? Lightweight, fast, minimal, and fully mine.

In Conclusion

Framer taught me how to make pretty things.
But this taught me how to make real things.

No code is cool - until you hit a wall.
Frameworks are powerful - until you forget how the basics work.
Now? I feel more capable, more aware, and way more in control of what I build.

You don't level up by reaching for shortcuts.
You level up by removing them and building anyway.