I Built a Website for 50p an Hour. Never Again.
I spent roughly 100 hours designing and building an early freelance website for £50. Three years later, here's what it taught me about pricing, scope, ownership and valuing my work.
Journal / Field notes
Thinking in public about designing systems.
Design decisions, Go engineering, security learning and the practical details behind building focused digital products.
Why I Use HTMX Over JavaScript Bloatware
Touch on the modern reality of frontend development. To build a simple dynamic button or form submission, developers are expected to spin up a Node.js ecosystem, configure bundlers, manage thousands of npm dependencies, and ship hundreds of kilobytes of JavaScript just to render text on a screen.
SQLite Can Go to Production
Yes, SQLite can handle production. Dispelling the myths about file-based databases, this look at running SQLite with Go covers connection pooling, Write-Ahead Logging (WAL) mode, and why a single file on a $4 VPS beats a complex cloud database stack for small-to-medium web apps.
Why I Chose Go + HTMX + SQLite Instead of React for My Portfolio
When I started rebuilding my portfolio, I didn't want to create another static website with a few project cards and a contact form.