For a while, I had been thinking about creating a blog where I could share my experiences and thoughts about the latest technologies and provide coding tips and tricks. Unfortunately, I didn’t get around to it, mainly because during my service in the IDF, I was always engaged with other tasks, such as preparing for the psychometric test, obtaining a driver’s license, and completing the first year of my bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. Since I no longer work in a full-time job and have recently finished my first-year exams for my bachelor’s degree, I finally had some time to explore new technologies I had seen on Fireship’s and Theo’s YouTube channels.

First Encounter With Astro

My first encounter with Astro was in Theo’s video where he showcased the new features of Astro 3. At that time, I didn’t pay much attention to this framework because the video was 48 minutes long and I was too lazy to watch it, but I did realize the following:

1. Astro is probably ideal for creating a blog.
2. Astro allows you to write JavaScript inside HTML files.
3. You can add clean animations to your app by adding just one line to your file (two if you count the import statement as well).

A few days later, I watched another one of Theo’s videos where he explained how to choose a framework in 2023, and guess what? Astro appeared in this video too under “Static HTML Site” for people who want to use Tailwind. Tailwind had been on my bucket list for a while, and that’s when I decided to take a more in-depth look at Astro.

A Change In My Way of Thinking

Going through Astro’s documentation, I was enlightened. This framework has everything:

• It integrates with other frameworks like React.
• SSR/SSG capabilities.
• It lets you decide when to hydrate every component, using Astro Islands.

These features are great, and having all of them in a single framework is incredible. Surprisingly, the “feature” that caught my eye the most is the one that lets you embed a markdown file into HTML. Although some will find it dumb, I had always thought that to create a new non-generic post on my blog, I would be required to write a new HTML page, which I didn’t like because HTML and CSS can get annoying sometimes. That “feature” is incredible to me; the fact that I can create a post by writing a markdown file sounds too simple to be true.

The Creation of Excali Blog

Less than two weeks ago, between night shifts at work, I started delving deeper into Astro’s documentation, going through the tutorial and understanding Astro’s features. After completing the tutorial, I decided it was finally time to create my own blog, and in a couple of days, I managed to create this blog using Astro, Tailwind, and TypeScript.