Hello, World - Rebooting My Blog

Welcome to the new irhadbabic.com! After years of meaning to rebuild my personal site, I finally took the plunge and created something I’m genuinely excited about.

Why the Rebuild?

My previous site had accumulated technical debt over the years. It was slow, hard to maintain, and honestly, I wasn’t proud to share it. I wanted something that reflected my current values as an engineer:

Performance First: Sub-200ms load times and 90+ Lighthouse scores
Security by Design: Modern security headers and privacy-focused analytics
Accessibility: WCAG compliant and keyboard navigation friendly
Maintainability: Clean code, automated deployments, and easy content management

The Tech Stack

I chose a modern, battle-tested stack that prioritizes speed and developer experience:

Hugo Static Site Generator

Hugo was the clear choice for several reasons:

Blazing Fast: Builds in milliseconds, not minutes
No Runtime Dependencies: Pure static files mean maximum security and performance
Flexible: Powerful templating and content management capabilities
Future-Proof: Markdown content that can be migrated anywhere

Tailwind CSS

Tailwind CSS provides:

Utility-First Approach: Rapid development without writing custom CSS
Responsive Design: Mobile-first responsive utilities out of the box
Dark Mode: Built-in dark mode support with prefers-color-scheme
Performance: Purged CSS means only the styles I use are included

Netlify Deployment

Netlify handles:

Automated Builds: Git-based deployments with branch previews
Global CDN: Sub-100ms response times worldwide
Security Headers: Automatic HTTPS and configurable security policies
Form Handling: Contact forms without backend infrastructure

Key Features

Performance Optimized

Image Processing: Responsive images with multiple formats (WebP, AVIF)
Critical CSS: Inlined above-the-fold styles to prevent render blocking
Lazy Loading: Images and videos load only when needed
Minification: All assets are minified and compressed

Developer Experience

Live Reload: Instant updates during development
Content Archetypes: Templates for consistent post structure
Shortcodes: Reusable components for images, videos, and galleries
Syntax Highlighting: Beautiful code blocks with line numbers

User Experience

Dark Mode: Respects system preferences with manual toggle
Accessibility: Semantic HTML, ARIA labels, and keyboard navigation
Typography: Readable fonts and optimal line spacing
Mobile First: Responsive design that works on all devices

What’s Next?

I’m planning to write about:

Engineering Practices: Lessons learned from building products and teams
Technology Deep Dives: Exploring new tools, frameworks, and methodologies
Product Development: From ideation to launch, sharing insights and case studies
Photography: Creative projects and technical aspects of digital photography

Behind the Scenes

This entire site is open source and available on GitHub. The build process is fully automated:

Write content in Markdown
Push to the main branch
Deploy automatically via Netlify
Optimize images and assets during build

The site achieves:

Performance: 95+ Lighthouse performance score
SEO: 100 Lighthouse SEO score
Accessibility: 100 Lighthouse accessibility score
Best Practices: 100 Lighthouse best practices score

Let’s Connect

I’m excited to start sharing more regularly. If you have thoughts on the new site, want to discuss any of the technologies mentioned, or just want to say hello, feel free to reach out.

You can also follow along on:

GitHub for code and projects
Twitter for quick thoughts and updates
LinkedIn for professional updates

Thanks for reading, and welcome to the new irhadbabic.com! 🚀