30th November 2018, so about a year ago (depending on when you’re reading this), I started my own blog. I didn’t know where this path will lead me. I had no clue as to how and what I'll be doing.
So, by now, my blog was visited by more than 300K people (varying from 20K to 60K per month). For some, it might be a lot, for others - not so much. But, personally, I'm very satisfied with these results! I had my ups and downs - controversy, successful posts, long breaks from writing, website crashes, etc. But, from my current point of view, I can only say it was worth the effort!
With this AMA, I want to celebrate my blog’s first year together 🥳 with great Dev.to community that has been there with me since the beginning. It’s been an awesome experience writing for you and all my other readers! I'm very much looking forward to what the future holds!
Thank you, and... I’m waiting for your questions!
Latest comments (9)
Well, my idea is even more complicated than that, so there's that. I'll definitely make it one day, but most will be needing some help. But thanks for kind words. 🙂
I know. I'm not planning on getting back to unity itself. Just game dev. I've also heard about Haxe - maybe I'll try it out. Thanks for the suggestion.
Read my other comment. I got interested in programming in the first place because I wanted to create my own game. I learned JS because of the same reason (it's one of the Unity-supported programming languages). Web development just came out of nowhere when I realized what JS's real purpose is.
I also have an awesome game idea that I want to realize one day, so I'll definitely come back to the game dev the future. But, with the rise of WebAssembly, maybe it'll be possible to realize it with JS. 😊
Congrats Areknawo! I am on the other end of the spectrum, being 70 years old and I am just getting started again. I was doing webdev 20 years ago when
"table" was a key layout tag and Microsoft Frontpage was a popular GUI.
Congrats and keep it up!!! I'm a hobby coder as well, though I've been doing it 20+ years. And don't let anyone ever tell you you're wasting your time whether your goal is a career or not. If you actually love it, do it. I don't enjoy coding when making money from it (though I haven't made money from it in 10+ years & I'm not trying to detour you from it). This community is pretty awesome & I've been a lurker in many forums/communities throughout the years and this is one of my top favorite places.
Your blog looks very nice! Did you use any specific frameworks or did you just write it/babel it yourself? Also, what are you using to track engagement? :D
It’s all just a simple Ghost blog theme. Handlebars, with simple CSS and JS. I’m working on a redesign however. This one uses my own framework, together with “hybrid rendering” (some stuff on server, some stuff on client-side). I’m planning on open-sourcing this framework, so stay tuned!
As for tracking - Google Analytics and some common sense. 🙂
Why and how did you take up programming?
Somewhat through gaming, actually. In the past, I played quite a few games, which inspired me - mainly strategic, aka MMO-RTS ones. So much so, that I ended up wanting to create one myself, and thus, I started with Unity with no programming knowledge whatsoever. I manage to create something by following YT tutorials, but nothing impressive. Then, after quite a long break, I came back to Unity, this time with the real intent of learning how to code.
I picked JS without any knowledge about what it is and what it does, only because Unity supported it. Then, long story short, I learned to code and improved my skills by pursuing my most ambitious game idea ever. Naturally, I didn't manage to finish it, but it helped me a lot in enhancing my skills. But, as the concept is really good (in my opinion), I'll most likely come back to it someday. 😉