You might remember my ramblings about how I’m starting to get the hang of web development and actually having fun with it, right?

Well, what can I say. I did what I set out to do when I cancelled my Webflow powered book blog because of their insane pricing: I learned how to program and built my own. It’s a lot faster, has more features and doesn’t cost me anything.

You can play around with it here: buch.fyi
I haven’t written any opinions for books read in 2022/23 but everything else should be there.

• After talking to friends about how I don’t understand how a React application can securely use API keys and secret data like that, they pointed me in the general direction of Next.js and explained server side rendering to me. I worked through the documentation and built buch.fyi on top of it. Since I love life on the cutting edge, I’m using Next.js 13 with the new /app folder structure.
• While doing so I discovered that I don’t need any API keys or databases at all. It’s all markdown files, baby!
• It’s all TypeScript! Look at me, writing typed code. All type saved up in here.
• I’m still using TailwindCSS for everything CSS related. It’s just fun to use, I’ll refresh my classic CSS knowledge when the time comes.
• Some transitions are using Framer Motion, which is as complex as it’s amazing.
• The book covers show up thanks to Open Library’s Covers API. That’s me, casually using an API to mix and match data!
• It’s all hosted on Vercel. I don’t understand why it’s free and how they manage to make everything as sleek as it is but I’m a fan. It’s incredible.
• I even learned how to create a RSS feed! Look at https://buch.fyi/feed and tell me this isn’t the best feed you’ve ever seen me create.

This may sound weird but I can’t wait to see what I’m doing next. So many possibilities! So much stuff to play around with!